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Advancing wearable sensors with 2D materials
Modern sensors usually rely on advanced nanofabrication techniques and doping to improve their sensitivity. However, their performance is heavily depended on carrier mobility and energy band structure, which are essentially constrained by the nature of the sensing materials. Therefore, it is a great challenge to substantially enhance the sensing effect for the development of ultrasensitive sensing devices.
By photon excitation and bandgap engineering to manipulate charge carrier transport through the atomically thin 2D nanomaterials on ultrathin SiC heterojunctions, the sensitivity of the sensors can be enormously enhanced toward a new flexible and ultrasensitive sensing technology for wearable devices.
Micromachining of Silicon Carbide
Silicon Carbide (SiC) nanofilm, a semi-2D material grown on device-grade Si wafer, represents an excellent sensing platform for MEMS sensors due to its high piezoresistive effect, outstanding chemical inertness, and superior mechanical properties. The main obstacles hindering the wider applications of SiC include the high wafer costs and low etching rate. By leveraging our well-established micro/nanofabrication capabilities for SiC at Griffith, we carry out chip fabrication, packaging and testing of the SiC optomechanical sensors, providing a technology platform for fabrication of SiC MEMS sensors.
Surface engineering of 2D materials
Producing pristine graphene in water was never easy, as graphene is hydrophobic, and it hates water. They quite never get along. The common strategy is to use surfactants to reduce water's surface tension, but it backfires as we have to find ways to remove surfactants afterwards.
The idea of this research is, instead of engineering the liquid (aka water) to match the surface energy of graphene, we engineer the surface of graphene to match that of water. So in here, we use polythiophene amphiphilic molecules as "double-sided tape". One side it stick to graphene, another side stick to water. Simple yet effective!
And it is amazed to observe the interfacial interactions between them!
3D printing of graphene aerogels
Despite recent progress in 3D printing of graphene, formulation of aqueous 3D printable graphene inks with desired rheological properties for direct ink writing (DIW) of multifunctional graphene macrostructures remains a major challenge. In this work, we develop a novel 3D printable pristine graphene ink in aqueous phase using conductive nanofibrillar network formulation by controlling the interfacial interactions between graphene and PEDOT:PSS nanofibrils. The formulated inks, tailored for energy applications, provide excellent 3D printability for fabricating multilayer 3D structures (up to 30 layers) with spanning features and high aspect ratio.
Printable 2D electrocatalysts for energy conversion
In fuel cells, chemical energy from the reactants (e.g. hydrogen or methanol) can be directly converted into electrical energy through electrochemical reactions. While splitting of hydrogen molecules at the anode (into positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons) is relatively easy, the sluggish kinetics of the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) impedes the overall performance of fuel cells, requiring a high loading of efficient electrocatalysts to overcome the activation energy.
In this research, we utilise the classic miniemulsion process to produce a novel nanoparticles stabilised graphene system, which is surfactant-free, highly conductive, and exhibits excellent electrocatalytic activity for sustainable fuel cells.
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