New graphene treatment could unleash new uses

MIT team develops simple, inexpensive method that could help realize material's promise for electronics, solar power, and sensors. Graphene, a two-dimensional array of carbon atoms, has shown great promise for a variety of applications, but for many suggested uses the material requires treatments that can be expensive and difficult to apply predictably. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and the University of California at Berkeley has found a simple, inexpensive treatment that may help to unleash the material's potential. The new method is described in a paper published this week , co-authored by MIT doctoral students Priyank Kumar and Neelkanth Bardhan, MIT professors Jeffrey Grossman and Angela Belcher, and two others at Berkeley. "We've been very interested in graphene, graphene oxide, and other two-dimensional materials for possible use in solar cells, thermoelectric devices, and water filtration, among a number of other applications," says Grossman, the Carl Richard Soderberg Associate Professor of Power Engineering. While pure graphene lacks some key properties needed for electronic devices, modifying it through the addition of oxygen atoms can provide those properties, Grossman explains. "Having oxygen atoms on graphene is so important for so many applications," Kumar adds.