Events

Metal Catalyzed sp2 Bonded Carbon – Large-scale Graphene Synthesis and Beyond

December 1, 2009 at 3pm/36-428

Peter Sutter
Center for Functional Nanomaterials

abstract:
Carbon honeycomb lattices have shown a number of remarkable properties. When wrapped up into fullerenes, for instance, superconductivity with high transition temperatures can be induced by alkali intercalation. Rolling carbon sheets up into 1-dimensional nanotubes generates the strongest and stiffest material known. Spreading out as 2-dimensional graphene sheets gives rise to charge carriers behaving as massless Dirac fermions with extraordinarily high room temperature mobilities.

Non-carbide forming transition metals can be used to catalyze the assembly of sp2 bonded carbon into macroscopic graphene sheets, required for a wide variety of applications that harness the extraordinary properties of single- and few-layer graphene. I will discuss recent advances in understanding and controlling this synthesis methodology, derived primarily from real-time, in-situ observations of graphene growth. Beyond macroscopic graphene growth, transition metals may be used to develop avenues for the selective and atomically precise “bottom up” synthesis of graphene nanostructures, as well as heterostructures involving graphene and other nanomaterials. First results suggest that a wide range of functionalities may be achieved if this vision becomes a reality.

bio:
Peter Sutter leads the Interface Science and Catalysis Group in the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in physics from ETH Zürich in 1996. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin and held a Physics faculty position at the Colorado School of Mines before joining the CFN in 2004. His research interests are in interfacial nanoscience, surface chemistry and electronic structure, nanostructure formation and manipulation, nanoscience for energy conversion and storage, as well as scanning probe and electron microscopy. Dr. Sutter has received several awards, among them a Research Corporation Research Innovation Award, a NSF Career Award, and most recently a Scientific American 50 award in 2007. He is the author of over 60 peer-reviewed publications, and has given over 30 invited presentations.