Grant: Idea to Innovation

Graphene and related 2D materials are receiving increasing attention world-wide due to their technologically important properties. They are flexible, strong, transparent, lightweight and have optical and electronic properties that make them suitable as components for a wide range of devices from photodectors and solar cells to better batteries. For high volume applications, these materials are made from natural deposits of, for example, graphite and molybenite ores for which Canada has significant supplies as a natural resource. These bulk crystals are exfoliated into single layers to create atomically thin sheets of graphene and molybdenum disulfide, respectively. While these materials hold significant promise, it has been challenging to controllably assemble these atomically thin materials into devices.Recent work at the University of Waterloo, to address this challenge, has lead to a discovery that such materials can be manipulated with ease when the nanomaterials are floating on water. Based on this idea, the proposed development effort seeks to build an additive manufacturing platform (i.e., 3D printing platform) which uses the air-water interface as a means to manipulate single layers of 2D nanomaterials such as graphene, molybdenum disulfide and hexagonal boron nitride. The proposed prototype system will enable the roll-to-roll transfer and patterning of 2D materials onto a variety of support substrates to be used in various applications.We expect that this new tool will be an enabling technology for incorporating graphene and related 2D materials into value-added products from Canadian resources. The powerful capabilities of the proposed system are expected to lead to new opportunities for many existing Canadian companies and will likely lead to new ventures focused on creating films and devices using next-generation prototypes of the coating technology developed in this program.