The origins of the material go right back to Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb. Looking for a material that combined conductivity while being flexible for bulb filaments, his experiments carbonising Japanese bamboo inadvertently created the first method to produce carbon fibre. By using pyrolysis –applying heat to a carbon-rich raw material in an inert atmosphere –Edison created fibres of carbon.
The material took a step forward in 1958 when physicist Roger Bacon created the first petroleum-based carbon fibres. Bacon noticed carbon filaments growing on a furnace electrode as he heated fibres of rayon in argon gas. While this created carbon fibres, they were of relatively weak strength and of little use.