S. Ravi P. Silva

Abstract:

Carbon as a material can have many faces and phases! It can bond to itself, and other elements, creating a plethora of material types. This allows structures based on this material to have different personalities, or even split-personalities. The ability to functionalize and solubilize carbons lends further versatility to this material system and allows for the development of multi-functional platforms. A better understanding of the synthesis, particularly over large areas, has enabled bottom-up design of nano-carbon films, from self-assembled structures to designer arrays. Coupled with the discoveries of fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene, this has led to a renaissance in the study of carbon as an electronic material. Within this talk, we will develop two themes based on the scale-up of nano-dimension structures to form large area material platforms. We will first discuss how large area low-temperature growth of nano-carbons, including carbon nanotubes, can be applied to CMOS-type electronic applications, and how this technology can be further extended to the wonder material of the 21st century, graphene. A novel photo-thermal chemical vapor deposition (PT-CVD) route for the CVD growth of nano-carbons, including CNT and graphene, will be discussed. Further, we examine how different allotropes of nano-carbons can be combined to produce large area, solution processable �inorganics-in-organics� hybrids that are key to 4th Generation (4G) solar cell devices. The electrical versatility and structural integrity of hybrid nano-carbons allow a new generation of multi-functional materials to be designed with light-matter interactions and large area electronic backplanes for sustainable technologies. The potential for future nano-carbon based electronic devices are numerous and significant, but so too are the technical and engineering challenges that need to be overcome. It needs multi-disciplinary teams of scientists and engineers to realize the full potential of this unique material and find solutions to the grand challenges of humanity.