Sukang Bae

Roll-to-roll production of 30-inch graphene films for transparent electrodes

The outstanding electrical, mechanical and chemical properties of graphene make it attractive for applications in flexible electronics. However, efforts to make transparent conducting films from graphene have been hampered by the lack of efficient methods for the synthesis, transfer and doping of graphene at the scale and quality required for applications. Here, we report the roll-to-roll production and wet-chemical doping of predominantly monolayer 30-inch graphene films grown by chemical vapour deposition onto flexible copper substrates. The films have sheet resistances as low as approximately 125 ohms square(-1) with 97.4% optical transmittance, and exhibit the half-integer quantum Hall effect, indicating their high quality. We further use layer-by-layer stacking to fabricate a doped four-layer film and measure its sheet resistance at values as low as approximately 30 ohms square(-1) at approximately 90% transparency, which is superior to commercial transparent electrodes such as indium tin oxides. Graphene electrodes were incorporated into a fully functional touch-screen panel device capable of withstanding high strain.1 SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT) and Center for Human Interface Nano Technology (HINT), 2 Department of Chemistry, 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, 4 School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746, Korea. 5 NanoCore & Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117576 & 117542, 6 Digital & IT Solution Division, Samsung Techwin, Seongnam 462-807, Korea, 7 Nanotube Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba 305-8565 & Faculty of Science and Engineering, Meijo University, Nagoya 468-8502, Japan.

Wafer-Scale Synthesis and Transfer of Graphene Films

We developed means to produce wafer scale, high-quality graphene films as large as 3 in. wafer size on Ni and Cu films under ambient pressure and transfer them onto arbitrary substrates through instantaneous etching of metal layers. We also demonstrated the applications of the large-area graphene films for the batch fabrication of field-effect transistor (FET) arrays and stretchable strain gauges showing extraordinary performances. Transistors showed the hole and electron mobilities of the device of 1100 +/- 70 and 550 +/- 50 cm(2)/(V s) at drain bias of -0.75 V, respectively. The piezo-resistance gauge factor of strain sensor was approximately 6.1. These methods represent a significant step toward the realization of graphene devices in wafer scale as well as application in optoelectronics, flexible and stretchable electronics.

Length-dependent thermal conductivity in suspended single-layer graphene

Graphene exhibits extraordinary electronic and mechanical properties, and extremely high thermal conductivity. Being a very stable atomically thick membrane that can be suspended between two leads, graphene provides a perfect test platform for studying thermal conductivity in two-dimensional systems, which is of primary importance for phonon transport in low-dimensional materials. Here we report experimental measurements and non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of thermal conduction in suspended single-layer graphene as a function of both temperature and sample length. Interestingly and in contrast to bulk materials, at 300 K, thermal conductivity keeps increasing and remains logarithmically divergent with sample length even for sample lengths much larger than the average phonon mean free path. This result is a consequence of the two-dimensional nature of phonons in graphene, and provides fundamental understanding of thermal transport in two-dimensional materials.

High-performance graphene-based transparent flexible heaters.

We demonstrate high-performance, flexible, transparent heaters based on large-scale graphene films synthesized by chemical vapor deposition on Cu foils. After multiple transfers and chemical doping processes, the graphene films show sheet resistance as low as ∼43 Ohm/sq with ∼89% optical transmittance, which are ideal as low-voltage transparent heaters. Time-dependent temperature profiles and heat distribution analyses show that the performance of graphene-based heaters is superior to that of conventional transparent heaters based on indium tin oxide. In addition, we confirmed that mechanical strain as high as ∼4% did not substantially affect heater performance. Therefore, graphene-based, flexible, transparent heaters are expected to find uses in a broad range of applications, including automobile defogging/deicing systems and heatable smart windows.

Flexible inorganic nanostructure light-emitting diodes fabricated on graphene films.

Organic materials [ 1 , 2 ] and amorphous fi lms [ 3 ] have long been studied for foldable and wearable mobile devices since the devices must be fabricated on a fl exible plastic fi lm. However, higher device performance is expected using a singlecrystalline inorganic compound semiconductor, such as gallium nitride (GaN), because of its high radiative recombination rate and mobility, as well as its excellent thermal and mechanical characteristics. [ 4 ] Nevertheless, the high growth temperatures of single-crystalline inorganic semiconductors make it diffi cult to use a conventional plastic substrate with a low melting temperature. In addition, a continuous, rigid inorganic fi lm has little tolerance for mechanical deformation. Although such problems can be circumvented by using assembly methods of micrometre-scale inorganic devices, [ 5–7 ] complicated processes including many lithography and etching steps are required for fabricating and assembling the devices. These obstacles can be overcome basically using inorganic nanostructures grown on graphene fi lms, which exhibit high temperature compatibility and good mechanical fl exibility. Here, we report on the fabrication of fl exible inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using GaN/ZnO coaxial nanorod heterostructures grown directly on graphene fi lms and their reliable operation. The basic strategy for the heteroepitaxial growth of GaN/ ZnO coaxial nanorod heterostructures on graphene fi lms and

Graphene-ferroelectric hybrid structure for flexible transparent electrodes.

Graphene has exceptional optical, mechanical, and electrical properties, making it an emerging material for novel optoelectronics, photonics, and flexible transparent electrode applications. However, the relatively high sheet resistance of graphene is a major constraint for many of these applications. Here we propose a new approach to achieve low sheet resistance in large-scale CVD monolayer graphene using nonvolatile ferroelectric polymer gating. In this hybrid structure, large-scale graphene is heavily doped up to 3 × 10(13) cm(-2) by nonvolatile ferroelectric dipoles, yielding a low sheet resistance of 120 Ω/□ at ambient conditions. The graphene-ferroelectric transparent conductors (GFeTCs) exhibit more than 95% transmittance from the visible to the near-infrared range owing to the highly transparent nature of the ferroelectric polymer. Together with its excellent mechanical flexibility, chemical inertness, and the simple fabrication process of ferroelectric polymers, the proposed GFeTCs represent a new route toward large-scale graphene-based transparent electrodes and optoelectronics.

Toward Wafer Scale Fabrication of Graphene Based Spin Valve Devices

We demonstrate injection, transport, and detection of spins in spin valve arrays patterned in both copper based chemical vapor deposition (Cu-CVD) synthesized wafer scale single layer and bilayer graphene. We observe spin relaxation times comparable to those reported for exfoliated graphene samples demonstrating that chemical vapor deposition specific structural differences such as nanoripples do not limit spin transport in the present samples. Our observations make Cu-CVD graphene a promising material of choice for large scale spintronic applications.

Efficient Mode-Locking of Sub-70-fs Ti:Sapphire Laser by Graphene Saturable Absorber

The efficient passive mode-locking of a Ti:sapphire laser with a monolayer graphene saturable absorber is demonstrated for the first time. High-quality and large-area (1 in.) monolayer graphene, synthesized by chemical vapor deposition, exhibits ultrafast recovery times and excellent nonlinear absorption behavior for bulk solid-state laser mode-locking near 800 nm. The continuous-wave mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser generates 63-fs pulses with output powers up to 480 mW under stable operation at 99.4 MHz.

Graphene mode-locked femtosecond Cr:ZnSe laser at 2500 nm

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, femtosecond pulse generation from a graphene mode-locked Cr:ZnSe laser at 2500 nm. To minimize the insertion losses at the lasing wavelength, high-quality monolayer graphene transferred on a CaF(2) substrate was used in the experiments. Once mode-locking was initiated, the laser generated a stable train of 226 fs pulses with a time-bandwidth product of 0.39. The mode-locked laser operated at a pulse repetition rate of 77 MHz and produced 80 mW output power with an incident pump power of 1.6 W. To our knowledge, this is the longest laser wavelength at which graphene-based passive mode-locking has been demonstrated to date.

High-quality, large-area monolayer graphene for efficient bulk laser mode-locking near 1.25 μm

High-quality monolayer graphene as large as 1.2×1.2 cm2 was synthesized by chemical vapor deposition and used as a transmitting saturable absorber for efficient passive mode-locking of a femtosecond bulk solid-state laser. The monolayer graphene mode-locked Cr:forsterite laser was tunable around 1.25 μm and delivered sub-100 fs pulses with output powers up to 230 mW. The nonlinear optical characteristics of the monolayer graphene saturable absorber and the mode-locked operation were then compared with the case of the bilayer graphene saturable absorber.