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Newswise Through the National Science Foundations Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program, Penn State has been awarded $4 million over the next four years to lead two teams of investigators and support members of a third team in the new field of 2D crystals and layered materials.

A material that is only a single atomic-layer thick can have completely different properties than its bulk counterpart. A new field of nanoscale science and engineering is emerging to study the wide variety of two-dimensional materials and what happens when they are stacked one on top of the other. Potential applications include energy harvesting and storage, sensing, electronics and photonics, and bioengineering.

There is a lot of interest in 2D materials beyond graphene, especially when considering stacking to form heterostructures because they can lead to phenomenal properties, said Joshua Robinson, Corning Faculty Fellow of Materials Science and Engineering and associate director of Penn States Center for Two-dimensional and Layered Materials (2DLM). I think we have a variety of excellent ideas in these novel materials, which is why we did so well with the EFRI.

The EFRI awards fund interdisciplinary teams of researchers in rapidly advancing fields of fundamental engineering research. The 2014 awards, called 2-DARE, for Two-dimensional Atomic-layer Research and Engineering, were awarded to nine teams in the U.S., three of which include Penn State researchers.

2D Crystal Formed by Activated Atomic Layer Deposition is led by Joan Redwing, professor of materials science and engineering and electrical engineering, with co-PIs Ying Liu, Nasim Alem, Thomas Jackson and Suzanne Mohney, all faculty at Penn State. The award is for $1,964,494.

Our project is aimed at developing Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) processes to synthesize 2D materials. The 2D crystal films will be explored for applications in thin film electronics and superconductivity, said Joan Redwing.

"Ultra-low Power, Collective-state Device Technology Based on Electron Correlation in Two-Dimensional Atomic Layers" is led by Joshua Robinson with Co-PIs Suman Datta and Roman Engel-Herbert of Penn State, James Freericks, Georgetown University and Eva Andrei, Rutgers University. The award is for $2,000,000.

This program will develop a post silicon transistor based on the principal of strong electron correlation and associated phase transitions in two-dimensional materials, said Robinson.

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The National Science Foundation Funds Three Penn State Teams to Study Two-Dimensional Materials