Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1010078
AUGUST 2018 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 81 dedicated to the electrical side of the business yet. We do have some metal materials that we are involved with, with a second vendor, Desktop Metal. We're still very early on in that relationship. Desktop Metal was just founded a year and a half ago. They're replacing the MIM, a metal injection molding technology, with a 3D printed version of that, which will be very interesting to see where their metals compare to traditional MIM technology. Currently with Stratasys, we only have the ESD7. I think as time goes on we'll develop more materials that have that nanocomposite inside, which should open doors in those areas. Holden: We'll continue to watch this. 3D printing has a lot of potentials and we all will look forward to its rapid deployments and developments. Thanks, Scott. Schwarz: Thank you. SMT007 Two researchers from the University of Kansas, Professor Hui Zhao and graduate student Samuel Lane, both of the Department of Physics & Astronomy, have connected a graphene layer with two other atomic layers (molybdenum diselenide and tungsten disulfide) thereby extending the lifetime of excited electrons in graphene by several hundred times. For electronic and optoelectronic applications, graphene has excellent charge transport property. But it has a major drawback that hinders such applications – its ultrashort lifetime of excited electronsof only about one picosecond. The KU researcher said one of the biggest challenges to achieving high efficiency in solar cells with graphene as the working material is that liberated electrons — or, the standing students — have a strong tendency to losing their energy and become immobile. In their new paper, Zhao and Lane report this issue could be solved by using the so-called van der Waals materials. To achieve this goalthey designed a tri-layer material by putting single layers of MoSe2, WS2 and graphene on top of each other. To demonstrate that the idea works, the KU researchers used an ultrashort laser pulse (0.1 picosecond) to liberate some of the electrons in MoSe2. By using another ultrashort laser pulse, they were able to monitor these electrons as they move to graphene. They found that these electrons move through the "hallway" in about 0.5 picosecond on average. They then stay mobile for about 400 picoseconds — a 400-fold improvement than a single layer of graphene, which they also measured in the same study. The work at KU may speed development of ultrathin and flexible solar cells with high efficiency. The findings will be published on Nano Futures, a newly launched and highly selective journal. The research was funded by National Science Foundation. Lane is supported by Self Graduate Fellowship. Source: University of Kansas Researchers Improve Conductive Property of Graphene, Advancing Promise of Solar Technology