The wonder material Graphene is set to revolutionize the smartphone industry by replacing current touchscreen technology, researchers have claimed.

Currently, the majority of tablets and smartphones are made using indium tin oxide, which is both expensive and inflexible. Crack a screen and you’ll know about the first of those problems. The second might start to become apparent if the industry starts to produce bendable communications devices, perhaps in the form of smartwatches which could clearly benefit from a bit of flexibility.

Graphene is considerably cheaper than the materials used in most modern smartphones and is much more supple too.

Dr Alan Dalton of the University of Surrey led the investigation into the new material. Working alongside researchers at the University of Dublin, he oversaw the production of hybrid electrodes, the “building blocks of touchscreen technology”, using silver nanowires and graphene.

“The growing market in devices such as wearable technology and bendable smart displays poses a challenge to manufacturers. They want to offer consumers flexible, touchscreen technology but at an affordable and realistic price. At the moment, this market is severely limited in the materials to hand, which are both very expensive to make and designed for rigid, flat devices.”

Dr Izabela Jurewicz of the University of Surrey added: “Our work has cut the amount of expensive nanowires required to build such touchscreens by more than fifty times as well as simplifying the production process. We achieved this using graphene, a material that can conduct electricity and interpret touch commands whilst still being transparent.”

The team is currently working with industrial partners to “implement the research into future devices”.

Don’t expect to be buying a smartphone with a graphene screen any time though, because truly scalable production of the material is still little more than an ambition.

Flexible phones are in the news right now for the wrong reasons, after some owners of the new iPhone 6 Plus claimed their new smartphone was being being bent by sitting in their pocket.

The smartphone insurance company SquareTrade told me that due to the perceived pliability of Apple's AAPL +2.94% latest creation, they would be including a new category in their famous stress tests.

“We’ve seen the reports in the last 24 hours of bendability and we’re keeping a very close eye on customer feedback,” a spokesman said. “A bendability test hasn’t been part of our breakability testing to date because up until this week we’ve never seen a phone thin enough to make this a potential issue. We’ve seen the volume of reports of bending today and the clear interest in the subject.

“Because we’re flexible, we’re carrying out a further test later today to investigate how much of an issue this might be for users. It’s important to stress that this won’t have any comparative data. It’ll be a view based on one phone – no bend, no bias, no warp – just SquareTrade’s opinion on how much of an issue this might be.”