Michael J. Bojdys - Functional Nanomaterials

As of 2016, the number of mobile phone subscriptions outstrips Earth’s human population. Critical raw materials (CRMs) and silicon, won in energy intensive refinement, make up the electronics in all these devices. While graphene still has to deliver on its potential in electronic applications, we look to 2D polymer materials that go beyond silicon and graphene.

Since its recent rise, graphene has been considered as a candidate material for “post-silicon electronics” thanks to its advantageous combination of high electrical and thermal conductivity and stability. However, the (half-)metallic character of graphene and the resulting absence of an electronic band gap have frustrated the development of a graphene-based electronic switch so far. There is an apparent lack of non-metallic 2D materials for construction of electronic devices and only five materials of the “graphene family” are known: graphene, hBN, BCN, fluorographene and graphene oxide.

The potential to make 2D materials “beyond graphene” is a great challenge to chemical bond formation and material design. In 2014 we have demonstrated the feasibility of the concept to expand the “graphene family” with a triazinebased graphitic carbon, a compound highlighted as an “emerging competitor for the miracle material” graphene. Now, our group is building a full-scale research program on layered functional materials that offers unique insights into controlled, covalent linking chemistry and that addresses practicalities in device manufacturing and structure-properties relationships.

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