Technical / Research

Remember the UK government's plan to invest £50 million in graphene? We got some new details today about that plan. It turns out that the UK plans to build a graphene hub that will lead graphene research into a commercial success. The £50 million will be used in four initiatives:

£38 million will go into building a national graphene institute, to be built by the University of Manchester (which will provide an extra £7 million). This will be a world-class shared facility for graphene research and commercialization activities. The institute will be used by both researchers and business.

Researchers from the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrated that point defects in graphene are helpful in transferring atomic-scale data by integrating electrons with light. This could pave the way towards faster and smaller electronic devices. The team created the point defects by placing silicon atoms instead of carbon atoms. A two-atom silicon wire in graphene is capable of transforming light into an electronic signal and then converting the signal again into light.

The team says that the silicon atoms operate like atomic-scale antennae, thus improving graphene’s local surface plasmon response and forming an atomic-scale prototypical plasmonic device. The electron microscope used for the study is a component of the Shared Research Equipment User Facility of ORNL.

A team of researchers led by Professor Sir Andre Geim demonstrated a graphene-Oxide based membrane that is impermeable to all gases and liquids (i.e. it's vacuum-tight) - but water can evaporate though it as if there's no membrane at all.

The researchers explain: "Graphene oxide sheets arrange in such a way that between them there is room for exactly one layer of water molecules. They arrange themselves in one molecule thick sheets of ice which slide along the graphene surface with practically no friction. If another atom or molecule tries the same trick, it finds that graphene capillaries either shrink in low humidity or get clogged with water molecules."

Researchers from Rice University and Rensselaer discovered that graphene is essentially invisible to water: when a single layer of graphene is used to cover silicon or most metals - there is almost no change in the water behavior when compared to a silicon without a graphene coating.

The researchers explain that "A drop of water sitting on a surface 'sees through' the graphene layers and conforms to the wetting forces dictated by the surface beneath. It’s quite an interesting phenomenon unseen in any other coatings and once again proves that graphene is really unique in many different ways".

Researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered new graphene based materials that can be customized to produce specific band gap and magnetic properties (i.e. have tunable functionality in electronics). The materials may be used to enable new nanoelectronics, optics, and spintronics devices.

The researchers found out that graphitic nanoribbons can be segmented into several different surface structures called nanowiggles. Each of these structures produces highly different magnetic and conductive properties. This means that you can basically create a new graphene nanostructure that is customized for a specific task or device.

Researchers developed a new blue light emitting hybrid graphene oxide nanosheets. The team used surface functionalization to turn the cyan (491 nm) emitting sheets into 400 nm blue. The team fabricated the new material through the graphene oxide surface functionalization with aryl diazonium salts of 2-aminoanthracene.

The researchers say that these surface-functionalized graphene oxide hybrids has unique optical properties - and they may play an exciting role in opto-electronic devices.

The Electronic Materials Research Institute (eMRI) at Northeastern University will develop a graphene-based technology for use in low-cost infrared imaging applications for the US military. eMRI signed the research agreement with the United States Army Research Laboratory at Adelphi, Md. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also collaborating in this project.

According to researchers from eMRI, graphene can potentially revolutionize infrared cameras or night vision goggles used in a variety of military and civilian applications - enabling cheaper cameras which are low on& size, weight and power. The research will focus on designing graphene-based bolometers, which measure heat generated by objects or people. The long-term goal is to license and mass-produce the technology for low-cost infrared cameras.