AGORACOM Small-cap Investor Relations Blog

SPONSOR: Gratomic Inc. (TSX-V: GRAT) Advanced Materials company focused on mine to market commercialization of graphite products, most notably high value graphene based components for a range of mass market products. Collaborating with Perpetuus, Gratomic will use Aukam graphite to manufacture graphene products for commercialization on an industrial scale. Click Here for More Info

• Nanopore membranes have generated interest in biomedical research because they help researchers investigate individual molecules – atom by atom – by pulling them through pores for physical and chemical characterization
• Researchers have not yet produced a membrane with spiral defects in the laboratory, but that task may be easier than trying to rid a graphene membrane of the current molecule-immobilizing step defects

Researchers at the University of Illinois examined how tiny defects in graphene membranes, formed during fabrication, could be used to improve molecule transport. They found that the defects make a big difference in how molecules move along a membrane surface. Instead of trying to fix these flaws, the team set out to use them to help direct molecules into the membrane pores.

Nanopore membranes have generated interest in biomedical research because they help researchers investigate individual molecules – atom by atom – by pulling them through pores for physical and chemical characterization. This technology could ultimately lead to devices that can quickly sequence DNA, RNA or proteins.

In 2014, University of Illinois physics professor Aleksei Aksimentiev and graduate student Manish Shankla demonstrated a graphene membrane that controlled a molecule’s movement through a nanopore by means of electrical charge. They discovered that once the molecules are on the surface of the membrane, it is very difficult to get them to shuffle into the membrane’s pores because molecules like to adhere to the surface.

While on sabbatical at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Aksimentiev found that DNA tends to accumulate and stick along the edges of fabrication-formed defects that occur as linear steps spanning across the membrane’s surface. The Illinois team’s goal was to find a way to use these flaws to direct the stuck molecules into the nanopores, as a principle that can also apply to the delivery, sorting and analysis of biomolecules.

To refine and confirm their observations, the researchers used the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at Illinois and the XSEDE supercomputer to model the system and molecule movement scenarios at the atomic level.

“Molecular dynamics simulations let us watch what is happening while simultaneously measuring how much force is required to get the molecule to clear a step,” Aksimentiev said. “We were surprised to find that it takes less force to move a molecule down a step than up. Although it may seem intuitive that gravity would make stepping down easier, it is not the case here because gravity is negligible at the nanoscale, and the force required to move up or down should be the same.”

Aksimentiev said team members originally thought they could use concentric defect patterns that form around the pores to force the molecules down, but their simulations showed the molecules congregating along the edges of the steps. That is when it dawned on them: A defect with edges that spiral into a pore, combined with an applied directional force, would give the molecule no other option than to go into the pore – kind of like a drain.

“This way, we can drop molecules anywhere on the membrane covered with these spiral structures and then pull the molecules into a pore,” he said.

The researchers have not yet produced a membrane with spiral defects in the laboratory, but that task may be easier than trying to rid a graphene membrane of the current molecule-immobilizing step defects, they said.

“When manufactured at scale, defect-guided capture may potentially increase the DNA capture throughput by several orders of magnitude, compared with current technology,” Shankla said.

“After a long development process, we are excited to see this principle used in a variety of other materials and applications such as delivery of individual molecules to reaction chambers for experiments,” the researchers said.Source: Nature NanotechnologyEurekalert

Source: Nature Nanotechnology

Gratomic Inc. (TSX-V: GRAT) Advanced Materials company focused on mine to market commercialization of graphite products, most notably high value graphene based components for a range of mass market products. Collaborating with Perpetuus, Gratomic will use Aukam graphite to manufacture graphene products for commercialization on an industrial scale.

• A quantum phenomenon that tests the limits of graphene’s use in electricity has been discovered by a research team from The University of Manchester, The University of Nottingham and The University of Loughborough.

The research addressed how electrons in graphene scatter off the vibrating carbon atoms in the hexagonal crystal lattice. The researchers applied a magnetic field perpendicular to the atomically thin sheet of graphene. This magnetic field forced the current-carrying electrons to move in a closed circular orbit.

There is only one way for an electron from pure graphene to escape this orbit, this is by bouncing off a “phonon” in a scattering event. These phonons are particle-like bundles of energy and momentum. By warming graphene crystals for a very low temperature, researchers discovered they can generate these phonons.

Once the research team triggered the phonon scattering event, they passed a small electrical current through the sheet of graphene in order to measure the precise amount of energy and momentum that can be transferred between and electron and a phonon during the event.

What happens during these scatter events?

The researchers discovered that there are two types of phonon scatter. The first being named transverse acoustic (TA) phonons. TA phonons force the carbon atoms to vibrate perpendicular to the direction of phonon propagation and wave motions, such motion can be likened to the way waves flow on the surface of water.

The second type of phonon scatter is longitudinal acoustic (LA). LA phonons stimulate the carbon atoms to vibrate back and forth along the direction of the phonon and the wave motion, which motion is comparable to the motion sound waves make through the air.

By assessing these events, researchers have found a very accurate way to measure the speed of both types of phonons. Such measurements have indicated that the TA phonon scattering events dominate over LA phonon scattering.

Laurence Eaves and Roshan Krishna Kumar, co-authors of the work, said “We were pleasantly surprised to find such prominent magnetophonon oscillations appearing in graphene. We were also puzzled why people had not seen them before, considering the extensive amount of literature on quantum transport in graphene.”

Mark Greenaway, from Loughborough University, worked on the theory of this effect said: “This result is extremely exciting – it opens a new route to probe the properties of phonons in two-dimensional crystals and their heterostructures. This will allow us to better understand electron-phonon interactions in these promising materials, understanding which is vital to develop them for use in new devices and applications.”

SOURCE: https://www.scitecheuropa.eu/a-quantum-phenomenon-highlights-the-limits-of-graphene-electronics/96360/

SPONSOR: Gratomic Inc. (TSX-V: GRAT) Advanced materials company focused on mine to market commercialization of graphite products, most notably high value graphene based components for a range of mass market products. Collaborating with Perpetuus, Gratomic will use Aukam graphite to manufacture graphene products for commercialization on an industrial scale. For More Info Click Here

Ever since graphene, the flexible, two-dimensional form of graphite (think a 1-atom-thick sheet of pencil lead), was discovered in 2004, researchers around the world have been working to develop commercially scalable applications for this high-performance material.

Graphene is 100 to 300 times stronger than steel and has a maximum electrical current density orders of magnitude greater than that of copper, making it the strongest, thinnest and, by far, the most reliable electrically conductive material on the planet. It is, therefore, an extremely promising material for interconnects, the fundamental components that connect billions of transistors on microchips in computers and other electronic devices in the modern world.

For over two decades, interconnects have been made of copper, but that metal encounters fundamental physical limitations as electrical components that incorporate it shrink to the nanoscale. “As you reduce the dimensions of copper wires, their resistivity shoots up,” said Kaustav Banerjee, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Resistivity is a material property that is not supposed to change, but at the nanoscale, all properties change.”

As the resistivity increases, copper wires generate more heat, reducing their current-carrying capacity. It’s a problem that poses a fundamental threat to the $500 billion semiconductor industry. Graphene has the potential to solve that and other issues. One major obstacle, though, is designing graphene micro-components that can be manufactured on-chip, on a large scale, in a commercial foundry.

“Whatever the component, be it inductors, interconnects, antennas or anything else you want to do with graphene, industry will move forward with it only if you find a way to synthesize graphene directly onto silicon wafers,” Banerjee said. He explained that all manufacturing processes related to the transistors, which are made first, are referred to as the ‘front end.’ To synthesize something at the back-end — that is, after the transistors are fabricated — you face a tight thermal budget that cannot exceed a temperature of about 500 degrees Celsius. If the silicon wafer gets too hot during the back-end processes employed to fabricate the interconnects, other elements that are already on the chip may get damaged, or some impurities may start diffusing, changing the characteristics of the transistors.

Now, after a decade-long quest to achieve graphene interconnects, Banerjee’s lab has developed a method to implement high-conductivity, nanometer-scale doped multilayer graphene (DMG) interconnects that are compatible with high-volume manufacturing of integrated circuits. A paper describing the novel process was named one of the top papers at the 2018 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM),  from more than 230 that were accepted for oral presentations. It also was one of only two papers included in the first annual “IEDM Highlights” section of an issue of the journal Nature Electronics.

Banerjee first proposed the idea of using doped multi-layer graphene at the 2008 IEDM conference and has been working on it ever since. In February 2017 he led the experimental realization of the idea by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) of multilayer graphene at a high temperature, subsequently transferring it to a silicon chip, then patterning the multilayer graphene, followed by doping. Electrical characterization of the conductivity of DMG interconnects down to a width of 20 nanometers established the efficacy of the idea that was proposed in 2008. However, the process was not “CMOS-compatible” (the standard industrial-scale process for making integrated circuits), since the temperature of CVD processes far exceed the thermal budget of back-end processes.

To overcome this bottleneck, Banerjee’s team developed a unique pressure-assisted solid-phase diffusion method for directly synthesizing a large area of high-quality multilayer graphene on a typical dielectric substrate used in the back-end CMOS process. Solid-phase diffusion, well known in the field of metallurgy and often used to form alloys, involves applying pressure and temperature to two different materials that are in close contact so that they diffuse into each other.

Banerjee’s group employed the technique in a novel way. They began by depositing solid-phase carbon in the form of graphite powder onto a deposited layer of nickel metal of optimized thickness. Then they applied heat (300 degrees Celsius) and nominal pressure to the graphite powder to help break down the graphite. The high diffusivity of carbon in nickel allows it to pass rapidly through the metal film.

How much carbon flows through the nickel depends on its thickness and the number of grains it holds. “Grains” refer to the fact that deposited nickel is not a single-crystal metal, but rather a polycrystalline metal, meaning it has areas where two single-crystalline regions meet each other without being perfectly aligned. These areas are called grain boundaries, and external particles — in this case, the carbon atoms — easily diffuse through them. The carbon atoms then recombine on the other surface of the nickel closer to the dielectric substrate, forming multiple graphene layers.

Banerjee’s group is able to control the process conditions to produce graphene of optimal thickness. “For interconnect applications, we know how many layers of graphene are needed,” said Junkai Jiang, a Ph.D. candidate in Banerjee’s lab and lead author of the 2018 IEDM paper. “So we optimized the nickel thickness and other process parameters to obtain precisely the number of graphene layers we want at the dielectric surface. “Subsequently, we simply remove the nickel by etching so that what’s left is only very high-quality graphene — virtually the same quality as graphene grown by CVD at very high temperatures,” he continued. “Because our process involves relatively low temperatures that pose no threat to the other fabricated elements on the chip, including the transistors, we can make the interconnects right on top of them.”

UCSB has filed a provisional patent on the process, which overcomes the obstacles that, until now, have prevented graphene from replacing copper. Bottom line: graphene interconnects help to create faster, smaller, lighter, more flexible, more reliable and more cost-effective integrated circuits. Banerjee is currently in talks with industry partners interested in potentially licensing this CMOS-compatible graphene synthesis technology, which could pave the way for what would be the first 2D material to enter the mainstream semiconductor industry.

Support for the research has come from various sources over the years, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Semiconductor Research Corporation, and currently, the U.S. Army Research Office and the University of California Research Initiatives.

Source: https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2019/019563/graphene-goes-mainstream