A team of Rice University researchers mapped out how flecks of 2D materials move in liquid ⎯ knowledge that could help scientists assemble macroscopic-scale materials with the same useful properties as their 2D counterparts.
“Two-dimensional nanomaterials are extremely thin—only several atoms thick—sheet-shaped materials,” said Utana Umezaki, a Rice graduate student who is a lead author on a study published in ACS Nano. “They behave very differently from materials we’re used to in daily life and can have really useful properties: They can withstand a lot of force, resist high temperatures and so on. To take advantage of these unique properties, we have to find ways to turn them into larger-scale materials like films and fibers.”
In order to maintain their special properties in bulk form, sheets of 2D materials have to be properly aligned ⎯ a process that often occurs in solution phase. Rice researchers focused on graphene, which is made up of carbon atoms, and hexagonal boron nitride, a material with a similar structure to graphene but composed of boron and nitrogen atoms.
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