University of Manchester - Page 18

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Manchester have signed an agreement to collaborate in realizing graphene's potential and accelerating its commercialization. 

The two organizations will work on the development of graphene metrology, characterization and standards which are crucial for industry uptake, as it is hard to be assured of quality for commercial uses without it.

University of Manchester reared 2-DTech has been awarded two grants from InnovateUK (formerly known as the Technology Strategy Board). 

The first is an £80,000 grant for a collaboration with dental implant company Evodental to produce graphene reinforced polymers for fixed dental prostheses. The second is a £98,000 grant for partnering up with Australian group Dyesol Ltd. in order to explore the solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. 

The seminal work by Manchester researchers, laying down elements of graphene research, was declared one of the most cited publications of all time. It has been cited more than 15,000 times, and is at number 65 in the top 100 list, produced by the journal Nature. 

In addition, Manchester researchers published other graphene and other 2D materials papers that have been cited more than a 1,000 times.

Researchers at the University of Manchester developed a new coating made from graphene-oxide that can be used to enable ultra-strong non-corrosive coating paints, hermetic food packaging and even a good substrate for flexible electronics.

The researchers developed the graphene-oxide coating by taking graphene-oxide and treating it with a "simple chemical treatment". The resulting film behaves like graphite in terms of chemical and thermal stability but becomes mechanically nearly as tough as graphene.

Researchers from the University of Manchester (with help from an international team of scientists) discovered that if you stack two graphene sheets on on top of the other (bi-layer graphene) in a certain way, it actually cools down when hit with laser light.

The two graphene sheets are aligned so one sheet is rotated by 11.3 degrees. With a specific laser energy, instead of heating up like any "normal" material - it cools down. The researchers explain that the photons of the laser absorb the vibration energy of the atoms - instead of the other way around.

Manchester University's graphene Nobel laureate Sir Andre Geim, together with Leonid Levitov from MIT discovered that electrons in a graphene superlattice move at a controllable angle to applied fields - this is like sailboats that sail diagonally to the wind.

A graphene superlattice is made from a sheet of graphene aligned on top of a sheet of boron nitride. This material behave as a semiconductor (unlike graphene itself which is a superconductor). The researchers found that the electrons in the new material behave as neutrinos that acquired a notable mass. This effect has no known analog in particle physics.

Towards the end of 2011, the University of Manchester announced its £61 million National Graphene Institute (NGI), which is nearly complete and will be one of the leading graphene research centers in the world. Now there are reports that the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, will unveil plans for a second £60 million graphene center in Manchester.

The National Graphene Center plan

The new center will be called the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre. Apparently it will be aimed towards development of graphene-based products with an eye on commercialization. The UK hopes that the new center, together with the NGI, will make Manchester and the UK in a position to lead the world in graphene technology.

In November 2013, the University of Manchester launched the second £50,000 Eli and Britt Harari Graphene Enterprise Award competition. A couple of days ago, they announced the winner of this year's award - Antonios Oikonomou for his Graphene Characterization and Standardization Services (GCSS) business enterprise.

GCSS, using the National Graphene Institute (at the University of Manchester) in-house expertise, will offer advanced graphene characterization, certification and standardization services. They aim to develop benchmark materials which can be developed into standards to be adopted by the industry.

Morgan Advanced Materials signed a joint-development agreement with the University of Manchester to scale-up a new graphene manufacturing process.

MAM has been involved with carbon processing for over 150 years, and has been working with the University since 2010 on the projects.

Researchers from the University of Manchester developed a new way to modify the transmission of light that goes through a silicon wire (waveguide) - by wrapping graphene around the wire. Such silicon waveguide can be used to build a photonic microchip, and have also applications in highly sensitive bio-chemical sensor devices and perhaps photo detectors too.

The waveguides in this research are built in loops shaped like oval racetracks - and are called racetrack resonators. In a bio-chemical sensor, the light that leaks out of the waveguide is used for chemical sensing. The graphene coating adds further capabilities to such a sensor, such as making it more sensitive and selective. The researchers say that the graphene dramatically alters the way the light is guided through the device.