Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of advanced materials solutions that promote safety and energy efficiency, is pleased to provide an update on the company's growing activities in the synthesis and utilization of crystalline two-dimensional (2D) materials.
Crystalline two-dimensional (2D) materials are of growing interest worldwide because of their unique properties and their great potential to impact a number of future devices and applications. Perhaps their most unique property is their 2D nature, which arises because their in-plane chemical bonds are completely satisfied and as a result they don’t have a propensity to bond strongly to whatever material(s) are below or above them. One result of their strong in-plane bonding and weak (van der Waals) out-of-plane bonding is that they can in principal be layered in any number of configurations, enabling the building of an entire new family of materials which are called van der Waals heterostructures. Another result is that their surface is an interesting starting surface upon which other materials such as gallium nitride (GaN) might be grown, as recently published by IBM scientists in Nature Communications.
The most famous crystalline 2D material is graphene, which at its thinnest is a single monolayer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for "groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." Geim and Konstantin's discoveries along with those from many other groups have led to a massive increase in research activities worldwide into graphene materials and applications.
There are literally hundreds of additional materials that have or are expected to have crystalline 2D allotropes, including molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and other transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), as well as silicene, phosphorene, borophene, boron nitride, and many others. The notable lack of a bandgap in pure graphene is not an issue for many of these new 2D materials, some of which exhibit relatively large bandgaps, many direct, and some transition from a direct bandgap for one monolayer to indirect if stacked three or more monolayers at a time. Many current R&D efforts in growing a number of different “beyond-graphene 2D materials” utilize graphene as the starting surface for synthesis. Researchers have learned a number of different ways of creating intentional defects in graphene and employing those defects as preferred nucleation sites for subsequent 2D materials growth.
Kyma credits Professor Josh Robinson of Penn State University (PSU) for bringing several collaboration opportunities in 2D materials to Kyma’s attention over the past few years. Robinson is currently an Associate Professor and Corning Faculty Fellow of Materials Science and Engineering as well as the Associate Director, Center for Two Dimensional and Layered Materials, at PSU.
Kyma’s activities today in 2D materials include the following:
Synthesis of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs): As announced last year, Kyma has received support from the US Department of Defense to develop tools and processes for manufacturing large area high quality crystalline 2D MoS2 materials for RF device applications. Kyma has just begun moving onto the second phase of one of those efforts. Last year we reproduced what many have already accomplished in MoS2 growth. With that baseline capability demonstration now behind us, Kyma was able to begin offering MoS2 materials to the market. More recently Kyma has begun to explore new chemistries for growth of MoS2 , choosing candidate chemistries which appear well suited for supporting higher quality, higher uniformity, and larger area MoS2 materials in what is expected to be an overall more manufacturable process than the more common approaches reported in the literature. Kyma hopes to extend the MoS2 effort to other TMD materials with an aim to begin offering van der Waals heterostructures in the future.
Synthesis of graphene and graphene oxide: Over the past several months, Kyma has begun investigating the various competing approaches to manufacturing graphene and graphene oxide. Kyma is interested both in low-cost high-volume approaches for next generation supercapacitor and other applications, and in cost-effective methods for manufacturing high quality large area graphene for future IC and related applications.
Synthesis of GaN by growing GaN on graphene: Kyma has begun experimenting with van der Waals epitaxial growth of GaN on graphene and has interest in extending that work towards GaN boule development as well as for producing single lift-off layers of GaN.
Kyma will provide an update on their TMD materials synthesis and characterization studies at the February 2016 scheduled SPIE Photonics West Conference, where Dr. Jacob Leach, Kyma’s Chief Science Officer, will present an invited talk entitled “Development of a Research Platform for Uniform, Large-Area Transition Metal Dichalcogenides.”
For more information about partnering with Kyma in advanced crystalline 2D materials and applications, email info@kymatech.com.
For more information about Kyma's MoS2 materials and crystalline 2D materials growth tools, email sales@kymatech.com.
Kyma’s mission is to provide advanced materials solutions that promote safety and energy efficiency. Kyma’s products include a diverse portfolio of crystalline nitride semiconductor materials, crystal growth and fabrication equipment, and power switching electronics. Additionally, the company recently launched a novel electromagnetic field sensor product.
For more information about Kyma Technologies, visit www.kymatech.com, e-mail info@kymatech.com, or call the company directly at 919.789.8880.
Kyma is a registered trademark of Kyma Technologies, Inc.
