Das-Nano develops innovative full-area characterization tool for graphene, thin-films, and other 2D materials

The Spain-based das-Nano has developed a novel characterization tool called Onyx. It is said to be the first system in the market designed for full-area characterization of graphene, thin-films, and other 2D materials.

Onyx implements Terahertz technology, co-developed with the Fraunhofer-IPM, to realize the characterization of the sample in a non-contact and non-destructive manner over multiple types of substrates and samples. Compared to other large-area methods, such as the four-probe methods, Onyx is capable to measure the spatial distribution of several properties of the sample (e.g. conductance). Spatial resolution in the order of few hundreds of microns enables the fast characterization of large areas of samples, as opposed to microscopic methods such as Raman, SEM, and TEM.

The Onyx can be easily integrated in a reactor because Terahertz waves can penetrate certain materials that could be used as windows in the reactor. It can measure conductance of graphene that is covered by a protective polymeric coating, and is capable of determining the conductance of graphene on conductive substrates.

Although Onyx was originally developed for graphene, it has been successfully tested on other samples such as epitaxial SiC, PEDOT, ALD, spin-coated photo-resins, ITO, NbC, and GaN.