According to studies conducted at Houston's Rice University, however, its ability to absorb sudden impacts hadn't previously been thoroughly explored. As it turns out, the material is 10 times better than steel at dissipating kinetic energy. That could make it an excellent choice for lightweight ballistic body armor.

The research was led by Rice materials scientist Edwin Thomas and assistant professor Jae-Hwang Lee of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

For their small-scale tests, they used sheets made up of multiple layers of graphene. These were stacked together and held in place in a stage mount. Although up to 300 layers were used at a time, the total thickness of the sheets ranged from just 10 to 100 nanometers – keep in mind that each layer was just one carbon atom thick.