Collaborative Research: Nanomanufacturing Reduced Graphene Oxide

该合作研究奖为理解和控制局部纳米级氧化石墨烯热还原的关键因素提供了资金。特别是，计算模型与实验的结合将提供热化学纳米光刻过程中局部热还原的效率和速率，以及该技术的最终写入速度和分辨率。还原形式的氧化石墨烯(GO)是一种有吸引力的石墨烯替代品，用于制造大规模柔性导体、超级电容器、机械谐振器，以及制造需要电子间隙的设备。热化学纳米光刻是一种新型的纳米加工技术，它可以利用加热的探针针尖来局部控制和调节GO的还原，并以几微米/S的速度在GO片内形成纳米尺度的还原区域，分辨率为12 nm。其目标是将该技术过渡到多个具有热尖的悬臂梁阵列用于平行写入，并将还原的GO纳米结构集成到场效应晶体管原型中。研究将有助于在原子尺度上阐明GO的结构特性、还原过程的驱动机制以及局部热传递引起的物理化学变化。这一新的理解将被转化为建模方案，用于设计纳米图案化工艺。这项研究将提高S社区对纳米级工艺的理解，并有可能提供廉价和强大的工具来降低纳米制造的成本。由于这个项目将与米兰理工大学的一个意大利集团密切合作开发，它将促进研究生的交流。在当前外包和经济全球化的环境下，国际培训是我们下一代领导人教育的重要组成部分。

This collaborative research award provides funding for understanding and controlling the key factors in the local nanoscale thermal reduction of graphene oxide. In particular, the combination of computational modeling with experiments will give access to the efficiency and rate of the local thermal reduction during the thermochemical nanolithography process, and to the ultimate writing speed and resolution of this technique. The reduced form of graphene oxide (GO) is an attractive alternative to graphene for producing large-scale flexible conductors, supercapacitors, mechanical resonators, and for creating devices that require an electronic gap. Thermochemical nanolithography is a new nanofabrication technique in which heated probe tips can be used to locally control and tune the reduction of GO and pattern nanoscale regions of reduced GO within a GO sheet at speeds of several µm/s, with a resolution of 12 nm. The goal is the transition of this technology to arrays of several cantilevers with hot tips for parallel writing, and the integration of reduced GO nanostructures into field effect transistors prototypes.The research will contribute to elucidate at the atomic-scale the structural properties of GO, the mechanisms driving the reduction process, and the physical-chemical transformations resulting from local heat transfer. This novel understanding will be converted into a modeling scheme to be used to engineering the nano-patterning process. This study will improve the community?s understanding of nanoscale processes and potentially provide inexpensive and robust tools to decrease the cost of nano-manufacturing. Since this project will be developed in close collaboration with an Italian group of the Politecnico of Milano, it will enable exchange of graduate students. In the current climate of outsourcing and globalization of economy, international training is an essential component for the education of our next generation of leaders.