Researchers have developed a revolutionary method to 'print' large-scale sheets of two dimensional piezoelectric material, opening new opportunities for piezo-sensors and energy harvesting.

Importantly, the inexpensive process allows the integration of piezoelectric components directly onto silicon chips.

Until now, no 2D piezoelectric material has been manufactured in large sheets, making it impossible to integrate into silicon chips or use in large-scale surface manufacturing.

This limitation meant that piezo accelerometer devices - such as vehicle air bag triggers or the devices that recognise orientation changes in mobile phones - have required separate, expensive components to be embedded onto silicon substrates, adding significant manufacturing costs.

Now, FLEET researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne have demonstrated a method to produce large-scale 2D gallium phosphate sheets, allowing this material to be formed at large scales in low-cost, low-temperature manufacturing processes onto silicon substrates, or any other surface.

Gallium phosphate (GaPO4) is an important piezoelectric material commonly used in pressure sensors and microgram-scale mass measurement, particularly in high temperatures or other harsh environments.

"As so often in science, this work builds on past successes," lead researcher Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh explains. "We adopted the liquid-metal material deposition technique we developed recently to create 2D films of GaPO4 through an easy, two-step process."

Professor Kalantar-zadeh, now Professor of Chemical Engineering at UNSW, led the team that developed the new method while Professor of Electronic Engineering at RMIT University. The work was materialised as a result of significant contribution from RMIT's Dr Torben Daeneke and extreme persistence and focus shown by the first author of the work, PhD researcher Nitu Syed.

The revolutionary new method allows easy, inexpensive growth of large-area (several centimetres), wide-bandgap, 2D GaPO4 nanosheets of unit cell thickness.

It is the first demonstration of strong, out-of-plane piezoelectricity of the popular piezoelectric material.

Research paper

Related Links
ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com

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