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Graphene oxide (GO) and nitrogen-doped graphene (NG) coated copper nanoparticles (NPs) have been developed in this work and investigated as nanofiller for water as Heat Transfer Fluids (HTFs). The morphology and composition of the coating were characterized to confirm the presence of functional groups and the nitrogendoping of the graphene coating. Different fractions of the two types of coated nanoparticles NPs between 0.1 and 10 wt.% were dispersed in water. The thermal conductivity of the dispersions was evaluated at temperatures between 20 and 50 °C. A positive correlation between the thermal conductivity of the HTFs and the fraction and temperature are observed as a result of the increase of the solid phase contribution into the heat transfer. At a concentration of 0.5 wt.%, the thermal conductivity of the NG-CuNPs nanofluid reached its maximum increase of 78%, compared to a 13% increase in the case of GO-CuNPs. However, due to the poor stability of the NG-CuNPs, further increase of the solid phase did not result in any additional improvement. In contrast, the thermal conductivity of the GO-based dispersion resulted in a 103% enhancement at 10 wt.% at a temperature of 50 °C.

The stock market is affected by many variables and factors, and the current forecasting models for time series are often difficult to capture the complex laws among multiple factors. Aiming at this problem, a stock price prediction model based on dual attention mechanism and temporal convolutional network is proposed. First, a convolution network more suitable for time series is used as the feature extraction layer. Feature attention is introduced to dynamically mine the potential correlation between the input factor features and closing prices. Second, based on Gated Recurrent Unit, on the other hand, a temporal attention mechanism is introduced to improve the model's ability to learn important time points and obtain importance measures from a temporal perspective. The experimental results show that the proposed model performs better than the traditional prediction model in the error index of stock price prediction and realizes the interpretability of the model in terms of index characteristics and time.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) array thermal interface materials (TIMs) are promising candidates for high-performance applications in terms of thermal performance. However, in order to be useful in commercial applications, the reliability of the interfaces is an equally important parameter, which so far has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, the reliability of CNT array TIMs is investigated through accelerated aging. The roles of CNT array height and substrate configuration are studied for their relative impact on thermal resistance degradation. After aging, the CNT catalyst is analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to evaluate chemical changes. The CNT-catalyst bond appears to degrade during aging but not to the extent that the TIM performance is compromised. On the other hand, coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch between surfaces creates strain that needs to be absorbed, which requires CNT arrays with sufficient height. Transfer and bonding of both CNT roots and tips also create more reliable interfaces. Crucially, we find that the CNT array height of most previously reported CNT array TIMs is not enough to prevent significant reliability problems.

Heat pipe is one of the most efficiency tools for heat dissipation in power systems. Currently, heat pipes are usually made of copper or aluminum. However, due to their relatively high density and limited heat transmission capacity, heat pipes are facing urgent challenges in power electronics. In this paper, a new class of graphene enhanced heat pipe that can cope with these issues is reported. The graphene enhanced heat pipe is made of high thermal conductivity graphene assembled film with nanostructure enhanced inner surfaces. The study shows that the dramatically improved heat dissipation capacity, 7230 W m−2 K−1 g−1, about 3.5 times higher than that of copper based commercial heat pipes can be achieved. This paves the way for using graphene enhanced heat pipe in lightweight and large capacity cooling applications, as required in many systems such as automotive electronics, hand‐sets and space electronics.

The lockdowns imposed worldwide to curb the coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) spread has positive effects on the environment. However, it is unclear what fraction is caused by weather and what is rel...

The flame-retardant properties of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/oxidised multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT–COOH) nanocomposite films were dispersed using a nonionic acrylate copolymer surfactant. The nanocomposite films were prepared by spin coating and characterised using SEM, quasi-elastic cold-neutron scattering, TGA–FTIR, cone calorimetry, and LOI. The PDMS/surfactant/MWCNT–COOH (PSM) nanocomposite displayed superior flame-retardant performance compared to materials containing only surfactant or MWCNT–COOH. The peak heat release rate, the peak smoke production rate, total smoke release rate, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide production from PSM were 42, 47, 18, 28, and 47% less than the PDMS control. The LOI results for PSM exhibited a value of 32% with respect to 25% for the PDMS. PSM suppresses the smoke emission and inhibits penetration of the air reacting with the gas volatiles of the material. These new nanocomposites provide a valuable improvement in flame-retardant capabilities by physical barrier effect compared to other PDMS polymer materials.

This review focuses on the recent advances in the synthesis of graphene quantum dots (GQDs) and their applications in drug delivery. To give a brief understanding about the preparation of GQDs, recent advances in methods of GQDs synthesis are first presented. Afterwards, various drug delivery-release modes of GQDs-based drug delivery systems such as EPR-pH delivery-release mode, ligand-pH delivery-release mode, EPR-Photothermal delivery-Release mode, and Core/Shell-photothermal/magnetic thermal delivery-release mode are reviewed. Finally, the current challenges and the prospective application of GQDs in drug delivery are discussed.

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nanocomposite films for underwater sound absorption applications are presented. Films were fabricated by a spin coating method and characterized using XPS, FTIR, TGA, SEM, tensile testing, and elastic cold-neutron scattering. The XPS results reveal the addition of surfactant and carboxyl-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT-COOH) increased the components of C and O atoms by 4.12% and 2.81%, respectively, compared to the native PDMS film. The addition of MWCNT-COOH and surfactants to the PDMS also significantly improved the thermal stability (700 °C) of the nanocomposite material compared to pure PDMS. Tensile property measurements of PDMS nanocomposites indicate that the addition of 2 wt% of MWCNT-COOH significantly improves the elastic modulus by 48% compared to the pure PDMS. The addition of surfactant nonetheless decreases the Young’s modulus by 34% compared to pure PDMS, due to changes in the microstructure of the PDMS matrix. The advantage of the decreased Young’s modulus is to avoid acoustic impedance mismatch. The surface morphology detected by SEM indicates that the surfactant can improve the dispersion of MWCNT-COOH in the PDMS films. Further, the elastic cold-neutron scattering results demonstrate the diffusive motions near the glass transition temperatures (Tg) of the nanocomposite films, providing in-depth details of the dynamic alignment of the inclusions within the material matrix. The PDMS/MWCNT-COOH/surfactant nanocomposite exhibited a sound absorption coefficient of 0.25, which was far higher than the PDMS control materials. This positive result indicates these PDMS nanocomposite films have promising future underwater sound absorption applications.

The increasing need for high thermal dissipation in small electronic products puts tough requirements on effective cooling solutions. Two of the most effective passive cooling devices in electronics today are vapor chambers and heat pipes. With new advancements in materials science and nanotechnology comes the possibility to further increase cooling capacity and at the same time make devices lighter. This study is a critical assessment on recent progress in the field of nanomaterial enhanced wick structures in vapor chambers and heat pipes. In this paper, nano-enhanced wick structures are divided into five different sub-categories based on material type. Publication trends for the different types of nano-enhanced wicks are studied by plotting them on a timeline. It is found that nanostructured metal wicks is the most studied field in recent years. A plot showing wick performance in terms of superheat temperatures for given heat flux is created to be used for benchmarking of new wick structures when pool boil experiments are carried out. An attempt to find correlation between publication trends, type of wick and performance is done. On the basis of the gathered data it is deemed difficult to find a distinct correlation, this is mainly due to difficulty in comparing performance between different studies, especially when different heat fluxes are used. There is no unambiguous answer to which category of nano-enhanced wicks that should be target for future studies. Graphene coating and pure carbon nanomaterials such as aerogels and graphene foam are still relatively unexplored and believed to have great potential if they can be attached to envelope materials.

The current development of the electronics system requires capabilities beyond conventional heat transfer approaches. New solutions based on advanced materials are being developed to tackle the current challenges in the development of electronics systems and the nanoscale 2D materials such as graphene are at the centre of the effort to exploit the intrinsic properties of carbon nanomaterials. In this work, we introduce a new concept of graphene-coated copper nanoparticles (G-CuNPs) and explore their multifunctional potential applications in metallic based paste used in electronics. The nanoscale powder was found to present a core/shell structure with the copper particle at its core and a disordered multilayer graphene structure continuously coating its surface. The composition of the particles was analysed, and the presence of the coating was found to provide oxidation protection for the metallic core. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed an additional role of the G-CuNPs with a reduction effect without the use of an additional reducing agent. Furthermore, due to the combined effect of the size of the particles and the oxidation-free metallic core, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) analysis revealed a melting depression at temperatures as low as $155 ^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$. Finally, the mechanical properties of the nanocoating were investigated and the results showed an enhanced ductility at the surface of the particles due to the presence of the multi-layered graphene structure, which might be exploited for powder flow and lubrication effect.

With the ever increasing demand for improved thermal management solutions in modern electronic devices, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been suggested as a candidate material for thermal interface materials (TIMs). However, the interfacial resistance between CNTs and matching substrate is huge due to poor interaction at the interface. With the help of chemical functionalization, these materials can be exploited to their full potential in TIM applications. By utilizing the epoxy-silane-based monolayers, covalent anchoring can be obtained between the CNTs and target substrate in order to bridge the interface, where high resistances, otherwise, would arise. To adapt CNT arrays to the epoxy chemistry, the CNTs have subsequently been subjected to nitrogen plasma in order to activate them with amino groups. The thermal interfaces were measured, and the thermal resistance was found to be decreased by 5% in comparison with the reference samples.

Considering the fact that the living condition of the shell is similar to the significant defiled environment of a ship, it is selected as a bionic object to study drag reduction for ship hulls. Previous studies have demonstrated that the special physical structure of the shell surface results in preventing biological adhesion. In order to improve ship operation efficiency, collaborative research on the physical structure was first carried out by studying the drag reduction performance of the actual Chlamys nobilis surface among the antifouling ranges of the structural dimensions without simplification. Thereafter, the drag reduction mechanism was analyzed by simulation analysis of the surface structures on the antifouling region of the C. nobilis surface. Simulation results demonstrated that a pair of counter-rotating vortices appeared at the tip of the bionic riblet surface. The secondary vortex, induced by the counter-rotating vortices, was the main reason for the drag reduction effect of the bionic riblet surface. Moreover, analysis of the drag reduction performance indicated that the maximum drag reduction rate could reach up to 8.53% at the speed of 3 m/s. This study reveals the drag reduction effect of the C. nobilis surface, which will provide a reference for combining drag reduction and antifouling.

Precisely detecting the concentration of glucose in the human body is an attractive way to prevent or treat diabetes. Portable glucose sensors with non-enzymatic catalytic materials have received great attention in recent years. Herein, a facile strategy for fabricating a high-performance electrochemical sensor is proposed. A non-enzymatic three-electrode integrated glucose sensor device based on CuO nano-coral arrays/nanoporous Cu (NCA/NPC) is designed and fabricated. The portable NCA/NPC glucose sensor device exhibits high catalytic activity for glucose. The great performance of the NCA/NPC glucose sensor device derives from the excellent conductivity of the NPC substrate and the high electrocatalytic activity of CuO nano-coral arrays. This device exhibits a high sensitivity of 1621 μA mM−1 cm−2 in the linear range of 0.0005–5.0 mM, low detection limit of 200 nM (S/N = 3), fast response time of 3 s, good anti-interference performance, excellent repeatability and considerable stability for glucose detection. This work will certainly provide an efficient structure and proper catalytic material choices for future non-enzymatic glucose sensors.

The traditional annular closed-loop E × B drifting Hall thruster is limited by its compact structure. Two-dimensional (2D) distribution of the plasma parameters inside the discharge channel cannot be accurately measured, thus directly hindering further understanding of the discharge process. In this paper, we propose to employ an unclosed E × B drift thruster with a visible (UDTv) ionization zone to conduct research into the effects of the crossed electric field and magnetic field on the plasma distribution inside the discharge channel. Experiments showed that the UDTv presented discharge similar to a Hall thruster, especially the low-frequency oscillation related to the discharge voltage. A 2D symmetrically crescent-shaped distribution of plasma inside the channel with a hollow zone located near the maximum of the magnetic field was clearly captured by optical imaging and an emission spectrometer. Correlation between the location of the maximal magnetic gradient and the 2D ionization zone configuration was verified. A decreased magnetic mirror effect at the location of the maximum magnetic field enhanced the electron–wall interaction, inducing near-wall conduction and secondary electron emission. The electron temperature presented a canyon distribution, resulting in a bimodal configuration of the plasma density. Increased flowrate lowered the ionization inside the channel and transformed the plasma distribution into a unimodal structure because of enhanced electron conduction and the lower electron temperature. Generally, the ability to capture the correlation between 2D plasma distribution and the magnetic field inside the discharge channel was successfully demonstrated, thus proposing new ideas for further research into the internal plasma of Hall thrusters.

In this work, a graphene assembled film integrated heat sink and water cooling technology was used to build an experimental set-up of a thermal management system to demonstrate the possibility to achieve efficient cooling of the propulsion battery in electric vehicles. The experimental results showed that the temperature decrease of a Li-ion battery module can reach 11°C and 9 °C under discharge rates as of 2C and 1C, respectively. The calculated thermal resistance of the graphene based cooling system is about 76% of a similar copper based cooling system. Surface modification was carried out on the graphene sheet to achieve a reliable bonding between the graphene sheet and the battery cell surface. This work provides a proof of concept of a new highly efficient approach for electric vehicle battery thermal management using the light-weight material graphene.

During the last decade, graphene foam emerged as a promising high porosity 3-dimensional (3D) structure for various applications. More specifically, it has attracted significant interest as a solution for thermal management in electronics. In this study, we investigate the possibility to use such porous materials as a heat sink and a container for a phase change material (PCM). Graphene foam (GF) was produced using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process and attached to a thermal test chip using sintered silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). The thermal conductivity of the graphene foam reached 1.3 W m−1 K−1, while the addition of Ag as a graphene foam silver composite (GF/Ag) enhanced further its effective thermal conductivity by 54%. Comparatively to nickel foam, GF and GF/Ag showed lower junction temperatures thanks to higher effective thermal conductivity and a better contact. A finite element model was developed to simulate the fluid flow through the foam structure model and showed a positive and a non-negligible contributions of the secondary microchannel within the graphene foam. A ratio of 15 times was found between the convective heat flux within the primary and secondary microchannel. Our paper successfully demonstrates the possibility of using such 3D porous material as a PCM container and heat sink and highlight the advantage of using the carbon-based high porosity material to take advantage of its additional secondary porosity.

Thermal treatment of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can significantly improve their mechanical, electrical and thermal properties due to reduced defects and increased crystallinity. In this work we investigate the effect of annealing at 3000 °C of vertically aligned CNT arrays synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on graphite. Raman measurements show a drastically reduced amount of defects and, together with transmission electron microscope (TEM) diffraction measurements, an increased average crystallite size of around 50%, which corresponds to a 124% increase in Young’s modulus. We also find a tendency for CNTs to bond to each other with van der Waals (vdW) forces, which causes individual CNTs to closely align with each other. This bonding causes a densification effect on the entire CNT array, which appears at temperatures >1000 °C. The densification onset temperature corresponds to the thermal decomposition of oxygen containing functional groups, which otherwise prevents close enough contact for vdW bonding. Finally, the remaining CVD catalyst on the bottom of the CNT array is evaporated during annealing, enabling direct anchoring of the CNTs to the underlying graphite substrate.

Almost 15 years have gone ever since the discovery of graphene as a single atom layer. Numerous papers have been published to demonstrate its high electron mobility, excellent thermal and mechanical as well as optical properties. We have recently seen more and more applications towards using graphene in commercial products. This paper is an attempt to review and summarize the current status of the research of the thermal properties of graphene and other 2D based materials including the manufacturing and characterization techniques and their applications, especially in electronics and power modules. It is obvious from the review that graphene has penetrated the market and gets more and more applications in commercial electronics thermal management context. In the paper, we also made a critical analysis of how mature the manufacturing processes are; what are the accuracies and challenges with the various characterization techniques and what are the remaining questions and issues left before we see further more applications in this exciting and fascinating field., YF, JH, YL, AZ, MK and JL acknowledge the financial support from The Swedish National Science Foundation (VR under the contract No 621-2007-4660), The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) under contract (No SE13-0061), the Swedish Board for innovation under the Siografen program and from the Production Area of Advance at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. SC, YZ and JL acknowledge the financial support by the Key R&D Development Program from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China with the contract No: 2017YFB040600 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51872182). XX is supported the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11674245 & No. 11890703). MS and CMST acknowledge financial support from the CERCA programme/Generalitat de Catalunya, the Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence programme, funded by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI, Grant No. SEV-2017-0706).

In this work, we systematically investigate and compare noninvasive doping of chemical vapor deposition graphene with three molecule dopants through spectroscopy and electrical conductivity techniques. Thionyl chloride shows the smallest improvement in conductivity with poor temporal and thermal stability and nitric acid induces the biggest sheet resistance reduction with modified stability. Molybdenum trioxide doping stands out, after thermal annealing, with both causing a significant sheet-resistance reduction and having superior temporal and thermal stability. These properties make it ideal for applications in advanced electronics. Theoretical studies based on the van der Waals density functional method suggest that cluster formation of molybdenum trioxide underpins the significant reduction in sheet resistance, and the stability, that arises after thermal annealing. Our comparative study clarifies charge transfer doping of graphene and brings understanding of the weak-interaction nature of such non-destructive doping of graphene. Our work also shows that we can use weak chemisorption to tailor the electronic properties of graphene, for example, to improve conductivity. This ability open up possibilities for further use of graphene in electronic interconnects, field effect transistors and other systems.

We demonstrate a simple and scalable strategy to obtain N, S and Si co-doped biocompatible graphene foams (GFs) with different shapes using egg albumen as the template. The unique porous structure and element doping endow the GFs with a high charge–discharge rate and good wettability, which largely improve the electrochemical performance of the electrodes, including ultrahigh specific capacitance (534 F g−1 at 1 A g−1), and excellent rate capability (308 F g−1 at 100 A g−1) and cycling performance (96.1% retention of the initial capacitance after 10 000 cycles at a high current density of 10 A g−1). Besides, when used as an electrochemical sensor for dopamine, the GF exhibits a detection limit as low as 1.2 μM with a linear response up to 70 μM, due to the low equivalent series resistance. These reveal great potential for promoting the application of 3D graphene in energy storage and electrochemical sensors.

Electric propulsion offers the advantage of a high specific impulse through a large exhaust velocity and has seen significant progress in space flight applications. Recently, we observed a transient plasma shockwave during pulsed plasma thruster operation when the plasma beam impacted a probe surface. However, details regarding the plasma shockwave formation are still unknown. This work is an experimental investigation of the compression-induced plasma shockwave in the presence of a planar obstruction. To study the complete shockwave buildup and dissipation process, an ultra-high-speed imaging system was set up to visualize the time-resolved shockwave morphology at a sub-microsecond level. In addition, the local magnetic field and plasma density were measured using 2D magnetic coils and a triple Langmuir probe, respectively. The successive images of the shockwave give us a comprehensive understanding of the shockwave buildup process. During the 12 μs operational period of the thruster, two shockwaves were formed during the first cycle of the discharge. It is also interesting to note that there is a 1 μs dissipation period between the two shockwaves with the same cloud of plasma compressing against the probe surface. A shockwave model is also developed to predict the appearance of the two shockwaves. The implication is that the local magnetic field strength can be a key indicator for the plasma shockwave buildup and dissipation process.

In this letter, the results from a series of experiments where graphene was grown on copper-platinum (Cu-Pt) alloy foils by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are presented. By using Raman spectroscopy to analyze graphene films grown on Pt-Cu alloy foils with different Cu/Pt weight ratios (75/25, 50/50 and 25/75), we could show how the Cu/Pt weight ratio affected both the quality and the number of layers in the as-synthesized graphene films. Furthermore, graphene growth was shown to occur at temperatures as low as 750 °C due to what we believe is the strong catalytic ability of the Cu-Pt alloy foils. By keeping the flow rate of the CH4 precursor gas as low as 1.5 sccm, a low growth rate was obtained where the growth rates of monolayer and bilayer graphene could be controlled by simply adjusting the growth time.

Shark skin inspired riblet surfaces have been known to have drag reduction effect for the over past 40 years. It first drew the attention from the aircraft industry. With the property of low drag and self-cleaning (antifouling), shark skin inspired riblet surfaces can also be used on navigation objects. In this paper, different marine drag reduction technologies are discussed, and a review of riblet performance studies is also given. Experimental parameters include riblet geometry, continuous and segmented configurations, fluid velocity (laminar and turbulent flow), fluid viscosity (water, oil and gas), and wettability are analyzed. However, force is obtained by area-weighted integral of shear stress distributions. So area of riblet surfaces is a crucial factor which has not been considered in many previous studies. An experiment is given to discuss the impact of area. This paper aims not only to contribute to a better understanding of marine drag reduction, but also to offer new perspectives to improve the current evaluation criteria of riblet drag reduction.

The development of integrated circuits (ICs) has seen exponential growth in performance over the last couple of decades and has pushed the boundaries for how we use our electronics in our daily lives. The scaling of ICs, and therefore also the performance development, is now starting to slow down when the physical designs are reaching critical dimensions where quantum effects starts to become noticeable. One proposed route to circumvent these issues for a continued scaling is based on the implementation of 3D integration by chip stacking for an increased miniaturization potential. Miniaturisation will soon also result in interconnect dimensions that surpass the mean free path (MFP) in Cu, the commonly used material for interconnects today, with a sharp increase in resistivity as a result. By changing the through silicon via (TSV) interconnect material from Cu to a carbon nanotube (CNT)/Cu composite, continued scaling can be ensured both in terms of electrical conductivity, ampacity and signal delays. Furthermore, a reduced skin effect can be achieved ensuring lower signal losses at higher RF frequencies making the CNT/Cu composite an ideal candidate to replace tranditional Cu interconnects. In this paper, we are demonstrating a coplanar waveguide (CPW) test structure using CNT/Cu filled TSVs connected to Au transmission lines on SiO 2 -passivated high resistivity Si substrates. The parasitic losses of the CNT/Cu TSV based CPW test structure were measured using a Sparameters test setup. The results showed that the CNT/Cu TSVs with affiliated contacts increased the signal losses up to S21 = -5.5 dB compared to Au reference transmission lines. These results are in line with previous results using CNT based TSVs and will serve as a basis for future improvements of CNT based interconnect technology for 3D integration.

As feature density increases within microelectronics, so does the dissipated power density, which puts an increased demand on thermal management. Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are used at the interface between contacting surfaces to reduce the thermal resistance, and is a critical component within many electronics systems. Arrays of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have gained significant interest for application as TIMs, due to the high thermal conductivity, no internal thermal contact resistances and an excellent conformability. While studies show excellent thermal performance, there has to date been no investigation into the reliability of CNT array TIMs. In this study, CNT array TIMs bonded with polymer to close a Si-Cu interface were subjected to thermal cycling. Thermal interface resistance measurements showed a large degradation of the thermal performance of the interface within the first 100 cycles. More detailed thermal investigation of the interface components showed that the connection between CNTs and catalyst substrate degrades during thermal cycling even in the absence of thermal expansion mismatch, and the nature of this degradation was further analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This study indicates that the reliability will be an important consideration for further development and commercialization of CNT array TIMs.

The design, fabrication, and use of a hotspot-producing and temperature-sensing resistance thermometer for evaluating the thermal properties of low-dimensional materials are described in this paper. The materials that are characterized include one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanotubes, and two-dimensional (2D) graphene and boron nitride films. The excellent thermal performance of these materials shows great potential for cooling electronic devices and systems such as in three-dimensional (3D) integrated chip-stacks, power amplifiers, and light-emitting diodes. The thermometers are designed to be serpentine-shaped platinum resistors serving both as hotspots and temperature sensors. By using these thermometers, the thermal performance of the abovementioned emerging low-dimensional materials was evaluated with high accuracy.

Nanotechnology has been widely used for developing sound absorption materials in air, but studies for underwater applications remain limited. In this study, carboxyl functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT-COOH) were added into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with dispersant to enhance the underwater acoustic properties. A water-filled impedance tube was built to determine the underwater sound absorption coefficient in the low frequency range from 1500 Hz to 7000 Hz and under variable hydrostatic pressures. Results demonstrate that pure PDMS is nearly acoustically transparent. With the addition of MWCNT-COOH and under normal pressure (0 MPa), the sound absorption coefficient was marginally improved to 0.3. The coefficient can nonetheless be further increased to above 0.75 with the introduction of both surfactant and MWCNT-COOH. It could be postulated that the trapped micro-voids and uniformly dispersed MWCNT-COOH contributed to the improvement when the pressure is at 0 MPa. Effects of MWCNT-COOH concentrations in a range of 0.1 wt% to 2 wt% were investigated. It was ascertained that the concentrations have only a marginal effect on the sound absorption performance. Tests were also conducted at variable hydrostatic pressure above 0 MPa. Results revealed that underwater sound absorption performance decreased with an increase in the hydrostatic pressure in a range of 0.5 MPa to 1.5 MPa. The drop in performance due the increase of hydrostatic pressure supported the claim that the presence of micro-voids within the material matrix structure contributed to the sound absorption.

Bilayer graphene is attractive for digital device applications due to the appearance of a bandgap under application of an electrical displacement field. Controllable and fast synthesis of bilayer graphene on copper by chemical vapor deposition is considered a crucial process from the perspective of industrial applications. Here, a systematic investigation of the influence of process parameters on the growth of bilayer graphene by chemical vapor deposition in a low pressure cold wall reactor is presented. In this study, the initial process stages have been of particular interest. We have found that the influence of the hydrogen partial pressure on synthesis is completely the opposite from that found for traditional tubular quartz CVD in terms of its influence on the graphene growth rate. H2/CH4 ratio was also found to effectively influence the properties of the synthesized bilayer graphene in terms of its atomic structure, whether it be AB-stacked or misoriented. Different pre-treatments of the copper foil, in combination with different annealing processes, were used to investigate the nucleation process with the aim of improving the controllability of the synthesis process. Based on an analysis of the nucleation activity, adsorption-diffusion and gas-phase penetration were employed to illustrate the synthesis mechanism of bilayer graphene on copper foil. After optimization of the synthesis process, large areas, up to 90% of a copper foil, were covered by bilayer graphene within 15 minutes. The total process time is only 45 minutes, including temperature ramp-up and cool-down by using a low pressure cold wall CVD reactor.

This paper concerns the thermal properties of graphene-based films for heat spreading applications. Following liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) films were made by two different methods, vacuum filtration and drop coating. Temperature decreases of up to 6 °C and 4 °C were measured at a heat flux density of 1200 W/cm2 for the vacuum filtrated and drop coated films respectively. For the first time in this paper, three different methods were combined to evaluate and predict the thermal performance of such graphene-based films. Resistance thermometers were used to monitor the hotspot temperature decrease versus the Joule heat flow as a result of using graphene-based heat spreaders. The 3ω method was used to experimentally determine the in-plane and through-plane thermal conductivities of such films. A finite element model of the hotspot test structure was setup using the in-plane and through-plane thermal conductivities (110 and 0.25 W/mK, respectively) obtained from the 3ω measurements. Simulations were performed to predict the hotspot temperature decrease with excellent agreement obtained between all methods. The results indicate that the alignment and purity of the graphene-based films, as well as their thermal boundary resistance with respect to the chip, are key parameters when determining the thermal performance of graphene-based heat spreaders.

An important clinical challenge is the development of implant surfaces which have good integration with the surrounding tissues and simultaneously inhibit bacterial colonization thus preventing infection. Recently, graphene oxide (GO) a derivative of graphene, has gained considerable attention in the biomedical field owing to its biocompatibility, surface functionalizability and promising antimicrobial activity. In this study gelatin-functionalized graphene oxide (GOGel) was synthesized by a simple one step modification where GO and GOGel were used to develop surface coatings on nitinol substrates. Mouse osteoblastic cell (MC3T3-E1) functions including cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation were investigated on GO-based coatings. The results indicated that MC3T3-E1 cell functions were significantly enhanced on both GO coated nitinol (GO@NiTi) and GOGel coated nitinol (GOGel@NiTi) compared with the control nitinol without coating (NiTi). Especially, the GOGel@NiTi surface exhibited the best performance for cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. Additionally the antimicrobial property of GO-based coatings against E. coli was studied with the evaluation of colony forming units (CFU) counting, live/dead fluorescent staining and scanning electron microscope (SEM). We found that the growth of E. coli was inhibited on GOGel@NiTi and particularly on GO@NiTi. SEM images revealed that the cell membrane of bacteria lost their integrity and live/dead fluorescent images confirmed the low live/dead ratio of E. coli after incubation on GOGel@NiTi and GO@NiTi. We conclude that GO-based coatings on NiTi combine the antimicrobial activity and improved biocompatibility and therefore present a remarkable potential in biomedical implant applications.

In similarity to graphene, two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has some remarkable properties, such as mechanical robustness and high thermal conductivity. In addition, hBN has superb chemical stability and it is electrically insulating. 2D hBN has been considered a promising material for many applications in electronics, including 2D hBN based substrates, gate dielectrics for graphene transistors and interconnects, and electronic packaging insulators. This paper reviews the synthesis, transfer and fabrication of 2D hBN films, hBN based composites and hBN-based van der Waals heterostructures. In particular, this review focuses on applications in manufacturing electronic devices where the insulating and thermal properties of hBN can potentially be exploited. 2D hBN and related composite systems are emerging as new and industrially important materials, which could address many challenges in future complex electronics devices and systems.