December 2009

A group of researchers from Singapore, led by Dingyuan Tang are using a Graphene-Polymer composite as a laser locker. A laser locker is used to oscillate laser modes in phase, giving rise to short and very intense light pulses. Graphene can be used as a mode locker because it is a ‘saturable absorber’, that is, its light absorbance decreases rapidly with increasing light intensity — an essential property for passive mode lockers.

The team approached this application by introducing a graphenepolymer composite film into an erbium-doped fiber laser. Encapsulating graphene in the polymer host passivate the graphene from ambient oxygen, which prevents photooxidation and optical bleaching by high-powered lasers, says Tang.

Angstron Materials announced that they have been awarded a $1.494 million project to develop processes for mass-producing chemically modified (functionalized) Nano Graphene Platelets (NGP) for a nearly limitless number of applications in the aerospace, energy, defense, automotive and telecommunications markets. Angstron was selected for the award by the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Angstron developed NGPs as an alternative to carbon nanotubes, which are difficult to disperse in plastic and often have purity issues—not to mention the cost factor. NGPs have been shown to have striking material properties; among other things, it has the highest intrinsic strength and the highest thermal conductivity of all existing materials as well as exceptional in-plane electrical conductivity (up to ~ 20,000 S/cm)and electron mobility that is 100 times faster than silicon.

Chemists from the University of Illinois at Chicago managed to use nano water droplets to mold Graphene into desired shapes.

Using different sized water droplets and shapes of graphene flakes, the chemists managed to fold it in different shapes. They say it's similar to the way proteins are folded in biological cells with the help of chaperone proteins.

Vorbeck materials announced that it has received EPA approval to manufacture Graphene as a conductive additive for inks. EPA’s approval, which was granted under the terms of the Low Exposure, Low Release Exemption Rule (LoREX), enables the company to offer Vor-ink, a highly conductive, versatile, and low-cost, conductive ink, for commercial sale to the printed electronics industry.

A team of researchers from the UK and Germany have succeeded to make single layers of Graphene luminescent by exposing them to oxygen plasma.

The photoluminescence observed is uniform and extends across large areas in the layers. It is also possible to make thin hybrid structures by etching just the top layers in a sample using the plasma, while leaving underlying layers intact. "This combination of photoluminescent and conductive layers could be used in optoelectronics and sandwich light-emitting diodes," said Andrea Ferrari of Cambridge University.