Researchers from ICN2, ICFO, Tokyo Institute of Technology, TU Eindhoven, National Institute for Material Sciences, MIT and Ludwig Maximilian University have studied electron-phonon interactions and found a remarkable speedup in cooling of twisted bilayer graphene near the 'magic angle': The cooling time is a few picoseconds from room temperature down to 5 kelvin, whereas in pristine bilayer graphene, cooling to phonons becomes much slower for lower temperatures. 

“We sought to understand how electrons and phonons ‘talk’ to each other within two twisted graphene layers,” says Klaas-Jan Tielrooij, associate professor at the Department of Applied Physics and Science Education at TU/e and the research lead of the new work.

Researchers from Kyushu University, Nitto Denko Corporation, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Osaka University, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Samsung Electronics have developed a tape that can be used to stick 2D materials to many different surfaces, in an easy and user-friendly way. 

Transfer process of monolayer graphene from Cu(111)/sapphire to a SiO2/Si substrate using the UV tape. Image from Nature Electronics

“Transferring 2D materials is typically a very technical and complex process; the material can easily tear, or become contaminated, which significantly degrades its unique properties,” says lead author, Professor Hiroki Ago of Kyushu University's Global Innovation Center. “Our tape offers a quick and simple alternative, and reduces damage.”

Levidian and Strategic Resources have announced the execution of a collaboration agreement to study supplying the BlackRock Project's metallurgical facility (owned by Strategic), located in Saguenay, Québec, Canada with Levidian's patented LOOP decarbonization technology. This collaboration agreement enables Strategic to accelerate its hydrogen development roadmap and move towards producing near emissions free iron products for use in electric arc furnaces and steel plants.

Levidian's LOOP system captures the carbon from methane to produce hydrogen and has a unique net cost advantage over other hydrogen production technologies thanks to its use of graphene. The Collaboration Agreement sets the path towards Levidian providing the design for the LOOP system and the LOOP modules as well as the strategic plan for the marketing of the graphene via offtake. The LOOP system was commercialized out of Cambridge University (UK) and is already being deployed to multiple locations globally, across a number of industries.

Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) has provided a progress update on its Graphene Aluminum-Ion Battery technology being developed by GMG and the University of Queensland (UQ).

The Company has announced it has produced multiple battery pouch cells with over 1000 mAh (1 Ah) capacity. In a recent build to confirm repeatability, the Company's development team has built and confirmed multiple cells, all reportedly testing greater than 1Ah (1000mAh). This is defined by GMG as "a major milestone achieved to demonstrate scalability from coin cells to pouch cells". 

Traditional microelectronic architectures are currently used to power everything from advanced computers to everyday devices. However, scientists are always on the lookout for better technologies. Recently, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and their collaborators from Menlo Systems and Sandia National Laboratories, have designed and fabricated asymmetric, nano-sized gold structures on an atomically thin layer of graphene. The gold structures are dubbed “nanoantennas” based on the way they capture and focus light waves, forming optical “hot spots” that excite the electrons within the graphene. Only the graphene electrons very near the hot spots are excited, with the rest of the graphene remaining much less excited.

Illustration of an optoelectronic metasurface consisting of symmetry-broken gold nanoantennas on graphene. Image from Nature

The team adopted a teardrop shape of gold nanoantennas, where the breaking of inversion symmetry defines a directionality along the structure. The hot spots are located only at the sharp tips of the nanoantennas, leading to a pathway on which the excited hot electrons flow with net directionality — a charge current, controllable and tunable at the nanometer scale by exciting different combinations of hot spots. 

Researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and China's Southeast University have reported a graphene-based aqueous memristive device with long-term and tunable memory, regulated by reversible voltage-induced interfacial acid-base equilibria enabled by selective proton permeation through the graphene. 

Memristive devices, electrical elements whose resistance depends on the history of applied electrical signals, are leading candidates for future data storage and neuromorphic computing. Memristive devices typically rely on solid-state technology, while aqueous memristive devices are crucial for biology-related applications such as next-generation brain-machine interfaces. Recently, nanofluidic devices have been reported in which solvated ion transport exhibits memristive behavior. The challenge associated with these approaches is the complexity of the device fabrication. Realizing memristive behavior in a simple system is highly desirable.

Scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed an ultra-sensitive graphene-based sensor that can detect extraordinarily low concentrations of lead ions in water. The device achieved a record limit of detection of lead down to the femtomolar range, which is said to be a million times more sensitive than previous sensing technologies.

The device in this study consisted of a single layer of graphene mounted on a silicon wafer. The researchers enhanced the sensing capabilities of the graphene layer by attaching a linker molecule to its surface. This linker serves as the anchor for an ion receptor and, ultimately, the lead ions.

Rice University researchers have mapped out how bits of 2D materials move in liquid ⎯ which that could help scientists assemble macroscopic-scale materials with the same useful properties as their 2D counterparts.

In order to maintain these special properties in bulk form, sheets of 2D materials have to be properly aligned ⎯ a process that often occurs in solution phase. The Rice team focused on graphene and hexagonal boron nitride, a material with a similar structure to graphene but composed of boron and nitrogen atoms.

Swinburne University of Technology and Sparc Technologies recently announced a collaboration, spearheading the evolution of smart coatings and composites through the Australian Research Council (ARC) research project. The partnership aims to revolutionize key industries, including aerospace, infrastructure, renewable energy, and more. 

Sparc Technologies' state-of-the-art facility enables the mass production of its graphene additive, Ecosparc. Denis Wright, general manager of Graphene Materials at Sparc, stating: “It is a very exciting opportunity to be contributing to this project and developing Ecosparc additives that will impart through their intrinsic properties, intelligence into coatings and composites.”

Researchers at  Monash University Malaysia and Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology have studied how graphene and graphene derivatives could be used as materials to reduce the operating temperature of solar panels. They reviewed the limitations and potential of solar module cooling techniques based on graphene and found that high costs and graphene treatments are the main challenges to overcome.

In a recent in-depth review, the team explained that graphene has attracted the interest of the scientific community as a medium to enhance heat transfers in cooling systems. When used for PV cooling applications, graphene can be used in different ways. For example, as a selective absorber coating or embedding it into a working fluid as a nanofluid. Graphene nanoparticles can also be added to thermal interface materials (TIMs) or phase change materials (PCMs) used for solar module cooling.