Collaborative Research: Nanomanufacturing Reduced Graphene Oxide

该合作研究奖为理解和控制氧化石墨烯局部纳米级热还原的关键因素提供了资金。特别是，将计算模型与实验相结合，可以获得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。氧化石墨烯（GO）的还原形式是石墨烯的一个有吸引力的替代品，用于生产大规模柔性导体、超级电容器、机械谐振器以及制造需要电子间隙的设备。热化学纳米光刻技术是一种新的纳米制造技术，该技术可以使用加热的探针尖端来局部控制和调整氧化石墨烯的还原，并在氧化石墨烯薄片内以几μ m/s的速度绘制还原氧化石墨烯的纳米级区域，分辨率为12 nm。目标是将该技术转变为具有并行写入热点的几个悬臂阵列，并将还原氧化石墨烯纳米结构集成到场效应晶体管原型中。该研究将有助于在原子尺度上阐明氧化石墨烯的结构特性、驱动还原过程的机制以及由局部传热引起的物理化学转变。这种新颖的理解将转化为一种建模方案，用于设计纳米图案化过程。这项研究将改善社区？我们对纳米工艺的理解，并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小组密切合作开发，因此它将能够交换研究生。在当前的外包和经济全球化的气候下，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.