Researchers have been closely studying the properties of monolayer graphene that can be produced from high-volume graphite. It is possible to manufacture graphene sheets of few layers thick with the same extraction methods.
The CNST team estimated how the electrical conductivity of multi-layer graphene sheets can be controlled by the relative orientation and the number of sheets. In energetically favorable situations where half the number of carbon atoms in adjacent layers shares an identical x-y position, the researchers estimated that layers of three or four sheets will not exhibit the properties of bulk graphite, but will behave like an assembly of monolayer and bi-layer sheets of graphene.
The results of their calculations proved that these high-symmetry stacking structures displayed specific properties that proved useful for manufacturing future electronic devices. The stacks of graphene sheets exhibited higher carrier mobility than that was possible using a monolayer or bi-layer of graphene with the same concentration of impurities.
According to calculations made by researchers, it was proved that transport measurements of highly pure graphene stacks could determine how many layers are present, the orientation of the stacks, and the cause for the dominant disorder. They could determine if the dominant disorder was due to long-range factors like charged adsorbates or short-range causes like missing atoms.
Source: http://www.nist.gov/