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How is graphene related to graphite?

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graphene: atomic force microscopy — graphene Atomic force microscopy image of water structures that were trapped beneath a sheet of graphene one atom thick.

Graphene is fundamentally related to graphite as it serves as the basic building block of the material. While graphite is a three-dimensional crystal composed of many layers of carbon atoms, graphene consists of a single, isolated layer of those same carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb, or hexagonal, lattice.12

In the structure of graphite, these graphene layers are stacked in a parallel arrangement and held together by relatively weak van der Waals forces. Because these layers are only weakly coupled, graphene can be derived from graphite through a process called exfoliation—a method famously demonstrated by Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim using adhesive tape. In fact, because of this structural relationship, even the simple act of drawing with a pencil on paper leaves behind trace amounts of single-layer and multilayer graphene.12