Technologies Available for License

2024-012: 2DAU: A lightweight automatic 2D material transfer system

Invention: 2024-012

For technical and licensing related questions, email tcp@bnl.gov.

Summary

Two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, hexagonal boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides exhibit a wide range of electronic and optical properties. 2D Materials can be "stacked" together in a LEGO-like fashion due to van der Waals forces. Almost all 2D material devices involve a stack of more than 2 layers of 2D materials. The process of stacking of 2D materials is also called "transferring" and the two terms can be used interchangeably. However, as of 2024, 2D material-based electronics have not been commercialized. One of the main roadblocks is the sheer amount of human labor involved in making a high-quality 2D material stack. The transferring process is a highly specialized skill that takes years to fully master, and it can take days if not weeks of human labor to fabricate a 2D material stack with clean interlayer interfaces. The 2DAU automatic transfer system, will automate the 2D material transferring process as much as possible, to the point that human input is unnecessary other than giving a fabrication order. The fabricated 2D material stack are free from "bubbles" that often contaminate the interlayer interfaces. The 2DAU system is cheap and lightweight, and can be attached to an ordinary microscope that every lab owns.