Two of IQIM’s research results have been highlighted in 15 for 2015: The Year in Research News at Caltech.
Images of early-stage growth of graphene on copper (Yeh group). The hexagons grow together into a seamless sheet of graphene (courtesy Nature Communications)
The Yeh group developed a method to grow large sheets of graphene at room temperature. “Previously, people were only able to grow a few square millimeters of high-mobility graphene at a time, and it required very high temperatures, long periods of time, and many steps,” says Caltech physics professor Nai-Chang Yeh, the Fletcher Jones Foundation Co-Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute and the corresponding author of the new study. Read more, including comments from IQIM Staff Scientist, David Boyd about how the process was developed, in the Caltech media story. The process is described in the Nature Communications article, Single-Step Deposition of High-Mobility Graphene at Reduced Temperatures.
The micrometer-scale device consists of a flexible aluminum plate that sits atop a silicon substrate. Credit: Chan Lei and Keith Schwab/Caltech
Keith Schwab, Professor of Applied Physics, and members of his group demonstrated observations of quantum motion in the Science publication Quantum squeezing of motion in a mechanical resonator . “We all know quantum mechanics explains precisely why electrons behave weirdly. Here, we’re applying quantum physics to something that is relatively big, a device that you can see under an optical microscope, and we’re seeing the quantum effects in a trillion atoms instead of just one.” Read more of the interview with Keith Schwab in the Caltech media story and the Science News article Seeing quantum motion; even one day ripples in the fabric of space-time?
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