I'm not really qualified to answer this, but I recently came across a similar question that might shed some light (old post though). https://www.physicsforums.

I'm not really qualified to answer this, but I recently came across a similar question that might shed some light (old post though). https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-is-graphene-only-a-recent-discovery.661080/#post-4209868 https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-is-graphene-only-a...