Biography:

Morgan Advanced Materials (LSE: MGAM) is a UK-headquartered global manufacturer of specialized engineered products made from carbon, advanced ceramics and composites. It was the first European strategic partner for the graphene activities at the University of Manchester National Graphene Institute, Morgan being recognized by Manchester for having the product engineering and design expertise required to commercialize the materials developed at the NGI. After being educated as a chemical engineer, Richard Clark has been with Morgan for 30 years, developing and commercializing materials across the spectrum of Morgan’s portfolio, most recently focusing on materials related to energy. Richard was part of Morgan’s team engaged with the University of Cambridge developing electrolytically produced carbon nanomaterials and has continued his involvement in this field in collaboration with Morgan’s team at the Manchester NGI.

Abstract:

Since the ground-breaking article in Science in October 2004 describing the occurrence, isolation and potential significance of graphene, there has been a huge interest in developing industrially scalable methods of manufacture from bottom-up and top-down routes. One such top-down route developed for the mass manufacture of graphene involves electrochemical exfoliation. This can be conducted in anodic (oxidative) and cathodic (reductive) regimens, with the latter more suitable for the production of higher quality (containing fewer defects) graphene, but hindered by lower efficiency and yield. This makes the selection of an appropriate electrolyte particularly important.Previous work has shown that graphene prepared by electrochemical exfoliation can be simultaneously functionalized with groups tailored to improve solubility in aqueous systems. In this case, functionalization significantly enhances the specific capacitance of the material when used as an electrode in supercapacitors.This presentation details the expansion of this work in two ways.

Firstly, it shows the relative characteristics of different types of electrolyte and suggests a mechanism for the performance in each case. Secondly, it details the use of the preferred electrolyte with appropriate additional reagents in the exfoliation of graphite and simultaneous functionalization of the product graphene with metal nanostructures, specifically various morphologies of gold and cobalt. The metal-functionalized graphene sheets show high catalytic activity and stability when used as electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions. Other uses of these materials are found in flexible electronics, in biosensing, and in biomedicine. The methods demonstrated can be readily extended to functionalize graphene with other metal salts or mixtures of metal salts, further expanding the applicability.

Biography:

Abstract:

Biography:

 Mineo Hiramatsu is a Full Professor of Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Director of Research Institute, Meijo University, Japan. He served as the Director of The Japan Society of Applied Physics. His main fields of research are plasma diagnostics and plasma processing for the synthesis of thin films and nanostructured materials. Author of more than 100 scientific papers and patents on plasma processes for materials science. Member of organizing and scientific committees of international conferences on plasma chemistry and plasma processing. Japan Society of Applied Physics Fellow.

Abstract:

Graphene (monolayer and few layers) is a two-dimensional material with the large anisotropy between in-plane and out-of-plane directions. Carbon nanowalls (CNWs) are few-layer graphenes with open boundaries, standing vertically on a substrate. The sheets form a self-supported network of mazelike-wall structures. CNWs and similar graphene structures can be synthesized by several plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) techniques. CNWs are sometimes decorated with metal nanoparticles and biomolecules. The structure of CNWs with large surface area would be suitable for the platform in electrochemical and biosensing applications. CNW films can be potentially used as electrodes of electrochmical sensor, capacitor, dye-sensitized solar cell, polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), and implantable glucose fuel cell (GFC). Among these, CNW electrodes in fuel cells should be decorated with catalytic nanoparticles such as Pt. From a practical point of view, control of CNW structures including spacing between adjacent nanowalls and crystallinity is significantly important. Moreover, formation method of catalytic metal nanoparticles should be established. We carried out CNW growth using PECVD employing CH₄/H₂/Ar mixtures with emphasis on the structure control of CNWs. We report the effects of ion bombardment and catalytic metals on the nucleation of vertical nanographenes to realize active control of interspace between adjacent walls. Moreover, CNW surface was decorated with Pt nanoparticles by the reduction of chloroplatinic acid or by the metal-organic chemical deposition employing supercritical fluid. We also report the performances of hydrogen peroxide sensor, PEFC and GFC, where CNW electrode was used.

Biography:

Sungjin Park has completed his PhD from KAIST, Korea and postdoctoral studies from Northwestern University and University of Texas at Austin. Currently, he is an Assoicate Professor at Inha University. He has published more than 85 papers in reputed journals. 

Abstract:

Chemical designing on nano-materials in molecular level would be a promising route to create new hybrid materials and to control various properties of nano- and molecular materials. Organometallic compounds have been a center of molecular catalysts with preeminent catalytic activity and selectivity in a wide range of chemical transformations. As carbon-based nanomaterials, such as graphene-based materials, carbon nanotubes, and carbon nitrides, are sterically bulky, and they exhibit a wide spectrum of electrical properties, they can dramatically tune the catalytic behavior of transition metal-based active species. Hybridization of organometallic complexes with graphene-based materials can give rise to enhance catalytic performances. In this presentation, I will discuss my recent research activities on the fundamental chemistry of carbon-based nano-materials as well as catalytic applications.

Biography:

K.V. Madhuri has completed her PhD at the age of 27 years from Sri Venkateswara University and postdoctoral studies from Universite de Moncton, CANADA. She is the Assoc. Professor &Assoc.Dean of Research & Development, in an esteemed University. She has published 19 papers in reputed national/international journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of reputed journals. She had presented about 27 research papers in national/International conferences. In addition to this, she had delivered invited talks in reputed institutes/conferences/Workshops/Orientation programs. She had recently finished a project under young Scientist scheme by Department of Science &Technology, New Delhi, India.

Abstract:

Transition metal oxides (TMO) is an interesting group of solid materials with a wide variety surface structures which affect the surface energy of these compounds and influence the chemical properties, optical, electrical and magnetic properties. The unusual properties of these oxides are due to the unique nature of outermost d- electrons. The general formulae of transition metal oxides MnO2n±1 where M represents the transition metal. They have two dimensional vander Waal’s bonded layered structures (Ex:V₂O₅,MoO₃--) or three dimensional frame work tunnel structures (Ex:WO₃, LiCoO₂----) which lead the materials for their applications in the field of Electrochromic and opto electronic devices. The combination of solid state materials science with thin film technology has significantly reduced the size of component and leads to miniaturization of display devices in the emerging technology.

TMOs can be deposited as thin film by Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) like thermal, electron beam , sputtering, so on and chemical vapour deposition (CVD) techniques like sol-gel, spin coating, spray pyrolisis so on. Thin film deposition in PVD technique consists of three major phases. In the first phase, the material should be in the proper form to deposit. In the second stage, it is transported through the medium and in the third stage it should deposit on the substrate to form a continuous film. Depending on the deposition parameters such as oxygen partial pressure, substrate temperature etc., one can deposit amorphous, polycrystalline and nanocrystalline thin films for their effective utilization in devices. These films will be characterized for their composition, structure, morphology, vibrational and optical studies by using X-ray photo electron spectroscopy, X-ray Diffraction, Atomic force microscopy, InfraRed Spectroscopy , Raman Spectroscopy and UV-VIS Spectroscopy.

Biography:

Larry G. Christner received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1972 followed by 5 years at United Technologies Corporation working on carbon deposition in steam reforming and materials development for fuel cells.  He spent the next 23 years at Fuel Cell Energy starting as Manager of materials science and was later promoted as Vice President.  He retired in 2001 and started LGC Consultants LLC.

Abstract:

Microporous and mesoporous carbons are excellent materials for any energy applications.  As capacitors, they exhibit high power, a large life cycle, high reliability, and low cost.  Coconut shell carbons dominate this market because of their low cost. The large surface areas of these carbons also make them useful in many adsorption and catalytic systems. The pore structure of these carbons allows special selective processes to be carried out such as separation of O2/N2, CO2/H2O, Butene/Isobutene and many other processes. The detailed parameters of each process play an important role in the selectivity and effectiveness of the process.

            In the work presented, some of the most important parameters are discussed for microporous and saran fibers at temperatures from 200C to 1000C. These materials exhibited adsorption characteristics of 4A angstrom and 5A angstrom molecular sieves.  Activated diffusion is shown to be the dominant factor for exclusion of specific molecules. The dynamic size and shape of the molecules determines the observed amount of adsorption at a specific time and temperature.  It can be concluded that when the molecular dimensions are close to the sizer and shape of the pores, the most important factors that determine the observed adsorption are time, temperature, relative pressure, and the diffusion path length.

Biography:

Taiichi Otsuji received the Doctorate,Engineering degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in 1994. He has been a professor at RIEC, Tohoku University, Japan since 2005 after working for Kyushu Institute of Technology(1999-2005) and NTT Laboratories (1984-1999), Japan. He is authored and co-authored 250 peer-reviewed journals. He was awarded the Outstanding Paper Award of the 1997 IEEE GaAs IC Symposium, and has been served as an IEEE Electron Device Society Distinguished Lecturer since 2013.  He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a senior member of the OSA, and a member of the MRS, SPIE, JSAP, and IEICE.

Abstract:

Graphene has attracted considerable attention due to its massless and gapless energy spectrum. We designed and fabricated our original distributed-feedback dual-gate graphene-channel field-effect transistor (DFB-DG-GFET). The DG-GFET structure serves carrier population inversion in the lateral p-i-n junctions under complementary dual-gate (Vg1,2) biased and forward drain-source (Vd) biased conditions, promoting spontaneous broadband incoherent THz light emission. The tooth-brash-shaped DG forms the DFB cavity having the fundamental mode at 4.96 THz, which can transcend the incoherent broadband LED to the single-mode lasing action. The GFET channel consists of a few layer (non-Bernal) highest-quality epitaxial graphene [3], providing an intrinsic field-effect mobility exceeding 100,000 cm2/Vs. Fourier-transform far-infrared spectroscopy revealed the THz emission spectra for the fabricated samples under population inversion conditions; one sample exhibited a 1-7.6-THz broadband, rather intense (~80 μW) amplified spontaneous emission and the other sample did a weak (~0.1 μW) single mode lasing at 5.2 THz both at 100K. Introduction of the graphene plasmonics in vdW 2D heterostructures is a key to increase the operating temperature and radiation intensity. Asymmetric dual-grating-gate metasurface structures may promote plasmonic superradiance and/or plasmonic instabilities, giving rise to giant THz gain enhancement at plasmonic resonant frequencies. Further improvement will be given by a gated double-graphene-layer (G-DGL) nanocapacitor vdW 2D heterostructures. Exploitation of the graphene plasmonics in vdW 2D heterostructures will be the key to realize room-temperature, intense THz lasing.  The authors thank A.A. Dubinov, D. Svintsov, S. Boubanga-Tombet, V. Mitin, and M.S. Shur for their contributions. 

Biography:

Kun Lian, Obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering from Louisiana State University, in 1992 and 1995 respectively. Lian worked as Postdoctoral Research Follower at University Michigan at Ann Arbor after receiving his Ph.D.  from 1997, Kun Lian jointed Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices, Louisiana State University/Southern University; as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor.  In 2012, Lian jointed School of Nano-Science and Nano-Engineering, Suzhou, Xi’an Jiaotong University as professor and deputy dean until now.

Abstract:

Biological systems found in nature provide excellent examples of highly controlled and organized architectures that generate complex materials. Using these materials and their unique microstructures as templates to produce nano-structured materials can result in some special results that manmade templates can rarely/can’t achieve at current time.This presentation will demonstrate an innovative technology to produce the copper-carbon-core-shell nanoparticles (CCCSNs) using cellulose as templates (US Patent No.: US8,828,485 B2). The technology relies on reducing the Cu⁺² ions by absorbing them in the cellulose (C₆H₁₀O₅)n  structures of natural fibers and then, going through carbonization and refining processes to produce the CCCSNs.In contrast to the conventional methods, the nanoparticles made from this technology are core/shell structures in nature and dispersible in both water and organic solvents (such as oil) with very low cost.  CCCSNs possesses many special properties that commercially available copper nanoparticles couldn’t have. CCCSNs have high physical/chemical stabilities and form the Cu<=>Cu₂O equilibrium system without forming cupric oxide, which is significant since cuprous oxide is an optical catalyst material with relatively low bandgap (2.137eV).The most unique property is the regeneration behavior of CCCSNs, when treated with reducing environment, the Cu<=>Cu₂O system will return to pure copper status with no significant changes in particle size distribution or core-shell structure.  Because of the excellent stability, superior performance and low cost, CCCSNs have been tested as anti-bacteria; anti-termite; anti-algea and as an optical catalyst for volatile organic compounds (VOC) treatment reagents and achieved outstanding results.

Biography:

Mohammed got his bacholer’s degree in Physics in 2006 from Umm Al-Qura University and Master’s degree in Applied physics in 2010 from Malaya University. He is a PhD student in the Department of Physics at the University of Kansas.
 

Abstract:

We have fabricated a two-dimensional MoS₂/graphene van der Waals heterostructure substrate for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). A stronger SERS enhancement was observed on the MoS₂/graphene vdW heterostructure substrate compared to single-layer MoS₂ or graphene substrate due to charge transfer and dipole-dipole interaction through the MoS₂/graphene interface. Additionally, a novel substrate composed of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on MoS₂/graphene van der Waals heterostructure was developed to explore the SERS effect of the AuNPs. The significant observed enhancement of this substrate can be attributed to the combination of the electromagnetic mechanism of plasmonic AuNPs and the much-enhanced chemical mechanism of the MoS₂/graphene heterostructure via dipole-dipole interaction at the interface as compared to graphene only. The minimum detectable concentration of the R6G can reach 5x10^-8M using a non-resonance 632.8 nm laser, which is an order of magnitude higher than that reported on the AuNPs/graphene substrate. SERS substrate based on MoS₂/graphene van der Waals heterostructure is an excellent SERS substrate for optoelectronics and biological detection.

Biography:

Free radicals have many functions, for example, as catalyst for chemical reactions and anti-oxidants in personal care products. However, most of the radical species used in industrial processes are highly toxic, expensive and not stable. Developing green, low-cost and stable free radicals is hence significant. It has been revealed that radicals exist on the edge and defects of graphene. The radicals have been found to be ultra-stable and non-toxic.Their stability is attributed to the rigid π-conjugated planar structure of graphene which acts like a physical barrier for the radicals and prevents them to react with each other. Although the presence of graphene radicals has been demonstrated, little is known on how to control their production. Furthermore, the potential applications of graphene radicals remain largely unexplored. To understand graphene radical and its formation, chemical oxidation and exfoliation of graphite followed by different reduction method was used as a technique for mass production of graphene. The chemical characterisation of GO and reduced GO samples beside the free radical measurments has indicated that the maximum radical content could be obtained on GO samples with a specific atomic ratio of carbon to oxygen. This means over oxidizing or over reducing of GO can decrease the radical population on its surface. 

Abstract:

Zahra Komeily Nia is doing her PhD at Deakin University (Australia) and recived her master and bachelor’s degrees from Tehran polytechnic (Iran) and Guilan universities (Iran). As an undergraduagte student she studied textile engineering and has some working knowledge in the filed of chemistry of natural and synthetic fibers. During her master study, she has worked on nanomaterial characterization and fabrication and her research work was more focused on material science and engineering. In Feb 2015, she has recived Deakin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (DUPR) and has worked on advanced characteriastion of graphene as her PhD project. She has published papers on her postgraduate research.
 

Biography:

Takafumi Ito is graduate student at Tohoku university. His major is material and science. He has been learning many kinds of material such as metal, semiconductor, ceramics and so on at college and graduate school. He studies and researches semiconductor at the university now. Tohoku University locates in Sendai. Sendai has many famous place such as Matsushima,  Akiu spring, Sakunami spring and so on. His birthplace is Ehime prefecture and it is also famous for thermal spring, ‘Dogo spring’.  It is the oldest thermal spring of Japan and Natsume Souseki who is Japanese famous writer, also loved the spring.

Abstract:

We focus on crystal growth and evaluation of 2D-layered compounds. For crystal growth, liquid phase growth with temperature difference method under controlled vapour pressure (TDM-CVP) has been studied GaSe and InSe are grown by this method. GaSe can generate wide frequency tunable terahertz (THz) wave. Due to the superior characteristic features of THz wave of high transparency like radio wave for non-polarized substances and high reflectivity to metal as light wave, THz wave can be applied for wide variety of non-destractive and non-invasive inspection. For example, disconnections and corrosion of electric wires covered with opaque insulating shield, water content in concrete, degradation of polyethelene can be measured non-destractively by using THz wave. 

Futher more, we proposed a novel friction induced growth method for 2D layered thin films. MoS2 can be grown by this method. MoS2 is one of the promising semiconductor materials of 2D transition metal dichalcogenide which exhibits expected high electron mobility for the application of the high speed field effect transistors with low power dissipation [6]. MoS2 also has much attention for spintronics research field. Therefore, a novel crystal growth and synthesis methods are urgently required at present.

In addition with the conventional photoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy and XRD, we have developed a new evaluation method for the determination of Van der Waals bonding force between layers. Van der Waals bonding energy has been  directly measured for the first time since the famous London’s theoretical analysis in 1937 In this research, successful synthesis of 2D layered materials are shown with those optical, electrical and Van der Waals bonding force characterizations.

Biography:

Bijan Nasri Nasrabadi has completed his BSc at Azad University of Shahreza (Iran) in the field of Polymer Engineering and then moved to Isfahan University of Technology (Iran) where he obtained his master degree in the same field. In 2016, he was awarded Deakin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (DUPR) and moved to Australia. He is working on soft actuator applications of carbon nanotubes as his PhD study. He has published papers on his postgraduate research.

Abstract:

Actuators are smart materials that convert light, heat, or electricity into motion and can be attractive in areas as diverse as biomedical surgery, sensing, and robotic. However, the practical applications of these actuators are limited by defective combination of the high generated force, fast response and large motion. Normally, actuators show large displacement with small force, such as polymeric devices, or display much less motion with a higher force, such as the alloy NiTi. Short operation time and slow reflexion are another weaknesses of current actuators. This study has demonstrated that a structure of carbon nanotube filaments, can represent long operation life time as well as quick and large bending actuation, in the absence of electrolytes.