Graphene is known as a revolutionary "super material" in the future. It was first manufactured in 2004. It has many unique properties, including stronger than steel, higher flexibility, and the best electrical conductivity ever.
Two-dimensional materials like graphene are usually made by sequentially peeling off a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a flat plate, and then using it for custom structures. However, combining them to make complex, sandwich-like sandwich materials is difficult and usually requires manual deposition of layers one at a time.
Since its discovery, the number of patents involving graphene has grown exponentially. However, in order to fully utilize its potential, scalable manufacturing technologies need to be developed.
Scientists at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom have recently released a major new technology for graphene 3D printing of customized complex components. This technology uses two-dimensional sheet-like fine materials such as graphene to be jetted as 3D printing inks. Different layers are stacked and meshed together to customize complex structures, which solves the major problems of new graphene electronic devices, and can make full use of the unique and useful properties of graphene, such as the property of converting light into electrical energy. The future technology of graphene manufacturing.
The latest research paper shows that the use of graphene as a 3D printing ink for additive manufacturing is a promising solution, with fine graphene flakes suspended in the ink, the size of which is about billions of a meter.
Researchers use quantum mechanical modeling to describe how electrons move in a two-dimensional material layer to fully understand how to modify breakthrough devices. Inkjet printed graphene is a representative arrangement of graphene flakes between two contacts, and the color gradient corresponds to the change of flake potential.
Professor Mark Fromhold, the co-author of the paper and Dean of the School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “By combining basic concepts in quantum physics with the latest technology, we have shown how complex equipment that controls electricity and light can be achieved by printing several layers thick but few layers. Made of centimeter-wide material."
"According to the laws of quantum mechanics, in the laws of electrons, electrons play the role of waves instead of particles. We found that electrons in two-dimensional materials travel along complex trajectories between multiple sheets. The electrons seem to jump from one sheet. To the other sheet, it's like a frog jumping between the overlapping water lilies on the surface of a pond." The picture shows an optical microscope image of a field-effect transistor containing an inkjet printed graphene channel.
By combining advanced manufacturing techniques to fabricate devices, as well as complex methods of measuring their performance and quantum wave modeling, the team accurately figured out how inkjet-printed graphene successfully replaced single-layer graphene as a two-dimensional metal semiconductor contact material.
The co-author of the paper, Dr. Lyudmila Turyanska, said: “Although 2D layers and devices were previously 3D printed, this is the first time anyone has determined how electrons pass through them and prove their potential use. Our results may lead to inkjet printed graphite The wide application of ene-polymer composites and a series of other two-dimensional materials, these discoveries can be used to manufacture a new generation of functional optoelectronic devices; for example, large and efficient solar cells; wearable flexible electronic devices, which are worn by sunlight or Powered by the movement of the reader; it may even be a printed computer."
The researchers used a variety of characterization techniques, including laser scanning micro-Raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, new 3D orbiSIMS instruments, and electrical measurements to provide an understanding of the detailed structure and function of inkjet printed graphene polymers, as well as annealing heat treatment Impact on performance.
The latest research paper, titled: "Quantum Transport of Electrons and Holes between Sheets in Inkjet Printed Graphene Devices", was published in the recent "Advanced Functional Materials" magazine.