Superconducting quantum microwave circuits can function as qubits, the building blocks of a future quantum computer. A critical component of these circuits, the Josephson junction, is typically made using aluminum oxide. Researchers in the Quantum Nanoscience department at the Delft University of Technology have now successfully incorporated a graphene Josephson junction into a superconducting microwave…
Graphene Helps Solve Nanomaterial Challenges
Nanomaterials offer unique optical and electrical properties and bottom-up integration within industrial semiconductor manufacturing processes. However, they also present one of the most challenging research problems. In essence, semiconductor manufacturing today lacks methods for depositing nanomaterials at predefined chip locations without chemical contamination. Scientists think that graphene, one of the thinnest, strongest, most flexible and…
Graphene Manipulates Surface Magnetism at Room Temperature
In a refreshing change of perspective, theoretical physicist Dr. Zeila Zanolli has looked at the proximity effects of graphene on a magnetic semiconducting substrate, finding it to affect the substrate’s magnetism down to several layers below the surface. Her paper was published on Oct. 5 in Physical Review B. Related work also led her to…
Graphene Aids Carbon Dioxide Capture
People across the world are studying climate change and the effects of greenhouse gases, and that body of research is expanding with the work of student-researchers at Cornell College. Oliver Trousdale and Samantha Slaymaker explored methods of carbon dioxide capture with Professor Craig Teague for the Cornell Summer Research Institute. “We have ways of capturing…
Research Uncovers New Phenomenon with Nanopore DNA Sequencing
Any truck operator knows that hydraulics do the heavy lifting. Water does the work because it’s nearly incompressible at normal scales. But things behave strangely in nanotechnology, the control of materials at the scale of atoms and molecules. Using supercomputers, scientists found a surprising amount of water compression at the nanoscale. These findings could help…
Wigner Crystal Discovered in ‘Magic-angle’ Graphene
Recently, a team of scientists led by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a huge stir in the field of condensed matter physics when they showed that two sheets of graphene twisted at specific angles — dubbed “magic-angle” graphene — display two emergent phases of matter not observed in single sheets…
Researchers Develop Graphene-based Battery
Metal-air batteries as a kind of energy conversion have captivated particular attention because of their high energy density, low fabrication cost, environmental friendliness, nontoxicity, long expiration date, long discharge time, high recyclability, and wide temperature tolerance. They have broad applications in electrified transportation (such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles) and energy storage…
Aging Biomarkers Tracked Using Graphene-Based Biosensor
The results of a new study published Sept. 17 in Lab on a Chip illustrate the impact of a graphene-based biosensors in identifying the circulating biomarkers of aging. Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) Assistant Professor Kiana Aran authored the study in collaboration with UC Berkeley Professor Irina Conboy, a pioneer in aging research, and Nanomedical Diagnostics,…
Graphene Bilayer Transports, Controls Spin
University of Groningen physicists in collaboration with a theoretical physics group from Universität Regensburg have built an optimized bilayer graphene device that displays both long spin lifetimes and electrically controllable spin-lifetime anisotropy. It has the potential for practical applications such as spin-based logic devices. The results were published in Physical Review Letters. Miniaturizing the elements…
Researchers Create 2D Materials Capable of Having Magnetism
An international team of physicists and chemists, headed by Eugenio Coronado and Guillermo Mínguez Espallargas, researchers of Valencia University’s Molecular Science Institute (ICMol) have been able to create materials similar to graphene from a molecular synthesis. These are MUV-1, robust materials with great chemical versatility that are capable of having different physical properties such as…
Zip Up Your Graphene Jacket
Graphene was first isolated and characterized in 2004 by two researchers at The University of Manchester. Since then, graphene — a single, thin layer of graphite and one of the strongest materials in the known universe — has been used in countless applications, thanks to its flexibility, transparency, and its highly conductive properties and its impermeability to most gases and…
Graphene Break Junction Aids Disease Treatment
Graphene Safeguards Photocathodes for Physics Experiments
Graphene comes up big to increase the lifetime of photocathodes, which convert light to electricity in accelerators and other physics experiments. Jared Sagoff, Argonne National Laboratory Transforming light into electricity is no mean feat. Some devices, like solar cells, use a closed circuit to generate an electric current from incoming light. But another class of…
Researcher Proposes Superheroes Give Graphene a Try
One superpower that gains constant attention is that of impenetrability, a power possessed by superheroes like Luke Cage, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Colossus. In a recent paper in Advances in Physiology Education, Barry W. Fitzgerald considers how Colossus’ skin might work. Colossus is a member of the X-Men and has appeared in films such as…
Examining Plasmon Properties in Nanostructured Graphene
A group of scientists from Russia and Austria demonstrated that the interaction between plasmon oscillations in nanostructured graphene causes a significant shift in the far IR light absorption spectrum. Their findings will enable modeling plasmon spectra and using the modeling results in optoelectronics. The results of the study were published in ACS Photonics. Collective excitations…
Quantum Electronics Aided by Novel Nano Material
An international team led by Assistant Professor Kasper Steen Pedersen, DTU Chemistry (Technical University of Denmark), has synthesized a novel nano material with electrical and magnetic properties making it suitable for future quantum computers and other applications in electronics. Chromium-Chloride-Pyrazine (chemical formula CrCl2(pyrazine)2) is a layered material, which is a precursor for a so-called 2D…
Graphene Reactivated Thanks to Ultra-thin ‘Teflon’
Fluorographene is a graphene derivative with fluorine atoms linked to the carbons. Fluorine atoms make fluorographene an electrical insulator. This compound can be imagined as an ultra-thin version of teflon — technically called polytetrafluoroethylene. Teflon is also formed by carbon and fluorine atoms. Hence, both are perfluorocarbons, but with different chemical formulas and structures. “Despite…
Material Electronics Mystery Solved
Schottky diode is composed of a metal in contact with a semiconductor. Despite its simple construction, Schottky diode is a tremendously useful component and is omnipresent in modern electronics. Schottky diode fabricated using two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted major research spotlight in recent years due to their great promises in practical applications such as transistors,…
Graphene and Other 2-D Materials Revolutionize Flexible Electronics
One in five mobile phone users in the U.K. have cracked their screen by dropping the phone in a three-year period, according to a YouGov poll. The mobile screens break easily because they are usually made from an oxide material which allows the touch screen to function but breaks easily. In contrast, graphene and other…
Graphene Triggers Clock Rates in Terahertz Range
Graphene — an ultrathin material consisting of a single layer of interlinked carbon atoms — is considered a promising candidate for the nanoelectronics of the future. In theory, it should allow clock rates up to a thousand times faster than today’s silicon-based electronics. Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Duisburg-Essen…
A Revolutionary Way to Control Molecules
A new way to control the electronic and magnetic properties of molecules has been discovered by scientists from the Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials (RCPTM) at Palacký University Olomouc, together with colleagues from the Institutes of Physics (FZU) and Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) of the Czech Academy of Science. Commonly, a change…
Examining the Molecular Limit of Plasmonics
Rice University researchers are probing the physical limits of excited electronic states called plasmons by studying them in organic molecules with fewer than 50 atoms. Plasmons are oscillations in the plasma of free electrons that constantly swirl across the surface of conductive materials like metals. In some nanomaterials, a specific color of light can resonate…
Graphene Flagship Heads Toward New Stage
The Graphene Flagship was launched in 2013 with the mission to take graphene and related layered materials from academic laboratories to society, revolutionize multiple industries and create economic growth and new jobs in Europe. After five years, the Flagship consortium has successfully completed the Core1 phase and is progressing smoothly towards more applied phases. It…
Realizing Phosphorene’s Full Potential
A technique for investigating the wetting behavior of water on phosphorene — the single layer form of black phosphorus — has been developed by A*STAR researchers seeking to better understand properties that could enable its commercial applications (Journal of Physical Chemistry C, “Anisotropic wetting characteristics of water droplets on phosphorene: Roles of layer and defect…
Observing the Growth of Two-dimensional Materials
Atomically thin crystals will play an ever greater role in future — but how can their crystallization process be controlled? A new method is now opening up new possibilities. They are among the thinnest structures on earth: “two dimensional materials” are crystals which consist of only one or a few layers of atoms. They often…