University of Hawaii at Manoa Graphene Research

Graphene is a two dimensional structure of Carbon atoms in hexagonal honeycomb arrangements. Some of Graphene’s properties is that it is the best conductor of heat at room temperature and it is also the best conductor of electricity known. Because of its interesting properties, Graphene is being thoroughly studied for many potential applications.

A Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) is used to study the surface properties of Graphene. Although theoretically Graphene is two dimensional (a uniform one atom thick layer), realistically it is very difficult to reproduce, thus the purpose of this project was to analize the quality of Graphene samples. With information from our scanning tunneling microscope we will be able to analyze Graphene samples for quality control (checking to see where sample is one atom thick).

The goal of the project was to produce an acurate STM at minimal cost to allow STM systems to be widely available in any lab environment

Learn more about the project here.