Study co-authors
Nanditha Dissanayake, Matthew Eisaman, Yutong Pang, and
Ahsan Ashraf in a
laser lab at Brookhaven.
(February 12, 2016) Scientists'
use of common glass to optimize graphene's electronic properties could improve
technologies from flat screens to solar cells
Graphene, the two-dimensional powerhouse, packs extreme
durability, electrical conductivity, and transparency into a one-atom-thick
sheet of carbon. Despite being heralded as a breakthrough "wonder
material," graphene has been slow to leap into commercial and industrial
products and processes.
Now, scientists have developed a simple and powerful method
for creating resilient, customized, and high-performing graphene: layering it
on top of common glass. This scalable and inexpensive process helps pave the
way for a new class of microelectronic and optoelectronic devices—everything
from efficient solar cells to touch screens.
Left: Schematic of
a graphene field-effect-transistor used in this study. The device consists of
a solar cell
containing graphene stacked on top of a high-performance copper indium gallium
diselenide (CIGS)
semiconductor, which in turn is stacked on an industrial substrate (either
soda-lime
glass, SLG, or
sodium-free borosilicate glass, BSG). The research revealed that the SLG
substrate
serves as a source
of sodium doping, and improved device performance in a way not seen in the
sodium-free
substrate. Right: A scanning electron micrograph of the device as seen from
above, with
the white scale
bar measuring 10 microns, and a transmission electron micrograph inset of the
CIGS/graphene
interface where the white scale bar measures 100 nanometers.
The collaboration—led by scientists at the U.S. Department
of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU),
and the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at SUNY Polytechnic
Institute—published their results February 12, 2016, in the journal Scientific
Reports.
"We believe that this work could significantly advance
the development of truly scalable graphene technologies," said study
coauthor Matthew Eisaman, a physicist at Brookhaven Lab and professor at SBU.