Cambridge University - Page 2

As part of a £8.6 million research project, announced in support of the government’s UK Innovation Strategy, University of Cambridge engineers will explore how Digital Twins, smart materials, data science and robotic monitoring can work together to develop a connected physical and digital road infrastructure system.

This project is one of eight Prosperity Partnerships being supported with an investment of almost £60 million by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), businesses and universities.

Researchers from AMO, Oxford Instruments, Cambridge University, RWTH Aachen University and the University of Wuppertal have demonstrated a new method to use plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) on graphene without introducing defects into the graphene itself.

Currently, the most advanced technique for depositing dielectrics on graphene is atomic layer deposition (ALD), which allows to precisely control the uniformity, the composition and the thickness of the film. The process typically used on graphene and other 2D materials is thermal water-based ALD, as it does not damage the graphene sheet. However, the lack of nucleation sites on graphene limits the quality of the dielectric film, and requires the deposition of a seed layer prior to ALD to achieve good results. Another approach is plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD), which, when applied to growth on graphene, can introduce surface damage. This is what to team addressed in this recent work.

Researchers at Graphene Flagship partners the University of Cambridge, UK, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, Empa-Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology, Switzerland and Graphene Flagship Associate Member the University of Exeter, UK, in collaboration with colleagues at CSIR-Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute, India, National University of Singapore (NUS), A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore, the University of Illinois and Argonne National Laboratory, US, have demonstrated that graphene can be used to produce ultra-high density hard disk drives (HDD). This can potentially lead to the development of ultrahigh density magnetic data storage: a big jump from the current one terabit per square inch (Tb/in²) to ten terabits over the same area.

HDDs contain two major components: platters and a head. Data are written on the platters using a magnetic head, which moves above the platters as they spin. The space between head and platter is continually decreasing to enable higher densities. Currently, carbon-based overcoats (COCs) layers used to protect the platters from mechanical damages and corrosion occupy a significant part of this spacing. The data density of HDDs has quadrupled since 1990, and the overcoats’ thickness was reduced from 12.5nm to about 3nm, which corresponds to one Tb/in². However, a COCs’ thickness of less than one nm would be required to make a significant improvement in data storage and reach a density of 10 Tb/in².

Researchers from Imperial College London, Durham University, University of Cambridge, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Zhejiang University, Beihang University, Nanjing Tech University, Macquarie University, University of British Columbia and Aalto University have collaborated to examine the "coffee ring effect" which has been hindering the industrial deployment of functional inks with graphene, 2D materials, and nanoparticles because it makes printed electronic devices behave irregularly.

The team of researchers has now created a new family of inks that overcomes this problem, enabling the fabrication of new electronics such as sensors, light detectors, batteries and solar cells.

Researchers at Cranfield University and the University of Cambridge in the UK, Institut Pasteur in France, Silesian University of Technology in Poland and UniversIti Teknologi PETRONAS in Malaysia have found that at a particular size (below 1-micron lateral size), it is possible to achieve amphiphilic behaviour in graphene. This graphene flake attracts water at its edges but repels it on its surface, making it a new generation of surfactant that can stabilize oil and water mixtures.

In a statement, Krzysztof Koziol, Professor of Composites Engineering and Head of the Enhanced Composites and Structures Centre at Cranfield University said, This new finding, and clear experimental demonstration of surfactant behavior of graphene, has exciting possibilities for many industrial applications. We produced pristine graphene flakes, without application of any surface treatment, at a specific size which can stabilize water/oil emulsions even under high pressure and high temperature... Unlike traditional surfactants which degrade and are often corrosive, graphene opens new level of material resistance, can operate at high pressures, combined with high temperatures and even radiation conditions; and we can recycle it. Graphene has the potential to become a truly high-performance surfactant.

UK-based planarTECH is launching an equity crowdfunding campaign at on Seedrs, as part of Graphene-Info's Graphene Crowdfunding Arena. planarTECH aims to expand its current business and also initiate new graphene endeavors.

planarTECH, founded in 2014, supplies CVD equipment for the production of high quality graphene sheets, as well as other 2D materials. The company was focused on research institutes, and already sold over 65 systems with a customer list that includes Manchester University, the University of Cambridge, Stanford University and the National University of Singapore.

UK-based graphene technology company Paragraf has announced the close of its £12.8 million (over $16 million USD ) Series A round led by Parkwalk. The round also included investment from IQ Capital Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners and Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialization arm of the University of Cambridge, as well as several angel investors. The funding will aim to see Paragraf’s first graphene-based electronics products reach the market, transitioning the company into a commercial, revenue-generating entity.

Paragraf sets out to deliver IP-protected graphene technology using standard, mass production scale manufacturing approaches, enabling step-change performance enhancements to today’s electronic devices. The company’s first sensor products have reportedly demonstrated order of magnitude operational improvements over today’s incumbents. Achieving large-scale, graphene-based production technology may enable next generation electronics, including vastly increased computing speeds, significantly improved medical diagnostics and higher efficiency renewable energy generation as well as currently unachievable products such as instant charging batteries and very low power, flexible electronics.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Jiangnan University in China have developed graphene-enhanced wearable electronic components incorporated directly into fabrics. The devices could be used for flexible circuits, healthcare monitoring, energy conversion, and other applications.

The researchers have shown how graphene and other related materials can be directly incorporated into fabrics to produce charge storage elements such as capacitors, paving the way to textile-based power supplies which are washable, flexible and comfortable to wear.

University of Cambridge spin-out company, Paragraf, recently announced that it started producing graphene at up to eight inches (20cm) in diameter, large enough for commercial electronic devices.

Paragraf is producing graphene ‘wafers’ and graphene-based electronic devices, which could be used in transistors, where graphene-based chips could deliver speeds more than ten times faster than silicon chips; and in chemical and electrical sensors, where graphene could increase sensitivity by a factor of more than 30. The company’s first device will reportedly be available in the next few months.

Researchers affiliated with the Graphene Flagship have demonstrated novel high-speed graphene-based data communication at a data rate of 50 Gb/s. Integrating graphene sheets into silicon photonics could form the basis for next-generation data communications.

The project was a collaboration between Flagship partners AMO GmbH (Germany), the National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT) (Italy), Ericsson (Sweden), Ghent University (Belgium), the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) (Spain), imec (Belgium), Nokia (Germany and Italy), the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) (Austria) and the University of Cambridge (UK).