Materials and Applications: Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene and Beyond Graphene

It is envisioned that the field of nanomaterials and nanotechnology will go through a tremendous expansion and will hold immense potential for providing advanced scientific and technological solutions that will have significant societal impact. For example, Carbon based nano-materials such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene possess unique electrical, surface & mechanical properties due to their structure, which can be utilized for several applications. The discovery of graphene (a 2D single atom layer of carbon), also opens up the possibility of other layered materials and structures, which upon reduction to single/few atomic layers, will offer functional flexibility that is far reaching than graphene. For example, single or few layered structures of Boron Nitride (BN), can be used as nanoscale dielectrics in electrochemical energy storage applications. Similarly, thin Molybdenum Disulphide (MoS2) layers are envisioned as efficient photoconductive materials. Nevertheless, for nanotechnologies to impact human life through innovative energy storage/generation technologies, such nano-materials having properties and functionalities compatible with present day structural elements of energy utilization processes and future energy technology concepts are needed. Achieving this will require renewed synthesis and characterization efforts in order to have complete control over their structure, properties, and arrangement. Keeping this as the central theme, this talk will focus on synthesis and characterization of a variety of functional nano-materials that are/will be key components in a variety of environmental, electronics and energy applications.