Story highlights
- $2 million in grants for graphene and molybdenum disulfide research
- Funding from National Science Foundation’s Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation.
- Applications will focus on 2D materials based biosensors and nanopores.
(2D Materials Magazine)- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have received $2 million in research grants for 2D materials funding. The grant’s were awarded by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation.
2D Materials funding
A.T. Charlie Johnson, director of Penn’s Nano/Bio Interface Center and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences has received funding for research on molybdenum disulfide and tungsten disulfide. Research will focus on application in nano/bio chemical sensors.
According to the researchers by attaching biological structures, such as olfactory receptors, to graphene, they have produced devices that work like electronic noses, using the two-dimensional material’s electrical sensitivity to produce a signal when the receptor binds to its chemical target. Molybdenum disulfide’s electrical sensitivity is not as high, but, unlike graphene, it has the ability to emit light. Diagnostic devices made with molybdenum disulfide could directly indicate a binding event through a visible change in colour.
Beyond graphene funding
Marija Drndić, a professor in Physics and Astronomy, has received for research beyond graphene and silicon nitride.
“We’re looking to develop new nanopores out of these novel two-dimensional materials,” Drndić said, “with the idea that graphene has some disadvantages when it comes to translocation. These new materials have interesting electrical and optical properties that might be advantageous.”
Along with a team of collaborators from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University and Northeastern University, Drndić’s group will begin honing techniques for fashioning nanopores out of these new materials and then will begin testing their properties.
“This wouldn’t just be for sequencing DNA but for filtering particles and other biotechnological applications,” Drndić said.
