Graphene’s Partial Transparency to van der Waals and Electrostatic Interactions

Graphene is the thinnest known two-dimensional (2D) material. This thinness is responsible for graphene’s well-known optical transparency. In addition to being transparent to light, its extreme thinness and nonpolar nature also render graphene partially transparent to van der Waals and electrostatic interactions. This enables media present on opposite sides of a graphene sheet to sense or feel each other and be influenced by each other. Such crosstalk between materials separated by an impermeable barrier is impossible for typical barrier or coating materials that are usually thick enough to completely screen out such interactions. In this article, we review graphene’s partial transparency to atomic interactions at the liquid–solid, solid–solid, and liquid–liquid interfaces. We compare graphene with other 2D materials such as hexagonal boron nitride and show that the extent of graphene’s transparency is strongly dependent on the nature and interaction range of the materials placed on opposite sides of the graphene layer. We end with recommendations for future research to better understand the underlying science and to develop practical applications of this exciting phenomena.