Grad student Do wins best poster award

11/24/2010 Shawn Adderly, ECE ILLINOIS

ECE graduate student Jae Won Do in ECE Professor [profile:lyding]'s research group won the best poster award for demonstrating a simple method for transferring graphene layers by electrostatic force at the International Vacuum Congress that was held in Beijing China in August.

Written by Shawn Adderly, ECE ILLINOIS

Jae Won Do
Jae Won Do

ECE graduate student Jae Won Do, who works in ECE Professor Joseph W Lyding’s research group, won the  best poster award for demonstrating a simple method for transferring graphene layers by electrostatic force at the International Vacuum Congress that was held in Beijing China in August.

Graphene is a single sheet of carbon atoms that are arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Because of graphene’s distinctive electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties, material scientists and electrical engineers are looking to graphene to build next generation of electronic devices .The 2010 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to two scientists for their research work in graphene, so Do’s work is in a very hot field.

Do has been working on his method to transfer high-quality graphene that is synthesized on copper to any desired substrate such as silicon. Do received the award in part due to its potential technological applications.

The advantage of his method is that it preserves the quality of graphene by not performing wet etching, which is generally used to transfer graphene from its growth substrate to any desired target substrate.

“Graphene quality degrades due to residue incorporation and wrinkle formation that result from wet etching,” Do said.

Do was also able to examine the interaction of graphene to its copper substrate by varying the electric field during the transfer. Using Raman spectroscopy, which is an optical technique that is very sensitive to materials defects, he found that more defects were not necessarily introduced during the transfer.

Lyding said that he foresees many technological applications for Do’s methodology. “His method represents an innovative approach for constructing graphene-based devices,” he said. “The method he uses avoids many of the steps and contamination issues.”

Do said he will continue to look at ways to transfer graphene between the target substrate and the copper substrate more uniformly, as he pursues his PhD with Lyding.


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This story was published November 24, 2010.