Repeated roll-to-roll transfer of two-dimensional materials by electrochemical delamination

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene (Gr), molybdenum disulfide and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) hold great promise for low-cost and ubiquitous electronics for flexible displays, solar cells or smart sensors. To implement this vision, scalable production, transfer and patterning technologies of 2D materials are needed. Recently, roll-to-roll (R2R) processing, a technique that is widely used in industry and known to be cost-effective and scalable, was applied to continuously grow and transfer graphene. However, more work is needed to understand the possibilities and limitations of this technology to make R2R processing of 2D materials feasible. In this work, we fabricated a custom R2R transferring system that allows the accurate control of the process parameters. We employ continuous electrochemical delamination, known as "bubble transfer", to eliminate chemical etchant waste and enable the continuous transfer of 2D materials from metal foils. This also makes our transfer method a renewable and environmentally friendly process. We investigate the surface topology as well as the electrical parameters of roll-to-roll transferred graphene on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) coated with ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA). Furthermore, we demonstrate for the first time the stacking of two layers of graphene or graphene on hBN by repeated lamination and delamination onto EVA/PET. These results are an important contribution to creating low-cost, large scale and flexible electronics based on 2D materials.

Recommended Methods to Study Resistive Switching Devices

“…The two most widespread methods to synthesize 2D materials applied to RS devices are chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and liquid-phase exfoliation. [89][90][91] A solution commonly employed is to synthesize the 2D material on the most suitable substrates (metallic foils for graphene [80] and h-BN [85][86][87] and SiO 2 or sapphire for 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) [81][82][83] ) and transfer it on the desired sample using different methods, [92][93][94] being the wet transfer with the assistance of a polymer scaffold the most used by the RS community. The problem is that the temperature used for the growth is typically >700 °C, which prevents growing the 2D material on wafers with existing integrated circuits due to diffusion problems; the maximum temperature allowed for complementary metal-oxidesemiconductor (CMOS) back-end of line integration is typically 450 °C.…”

“…Recently, thermally assisted conversion of metallic films at CMOS back‐end compatible temperatures has been demonstrated to yield promising layered films, such as platinum diselenide (PtSe 2 ) . A solution commonly employed is to synthesize the 2D material on the most suitable substrates (metallic foils for graphene and h ‐BN and SiO 2 or sapphire for 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs)) and transfer it on the desired sample using different methods, being the wet transfer with the assistance of a polymer scaffold the most used by the RS community . However, three main issues need to be taken into account: i) if the 2D layered material is too thin (e.g., monolayer) and the top electrodes are very large (>10 4 µm 2 ), the 2D material below the TE is likely to contain cracks (see Figure a).…”

Additive Manufacturing of Functional Microarchitected Reactors for Energy, Environmental, and Biological Applications

“…13d). In addition, the high-throughput and cost-efficient processing of printable materials using continuous processes, such as roll-to-roll (R2R) [102][103][104][105] are of great importance for their future adoption in the industrialization of AM methods (Fig. 13e).…”

Recent Advances in Resistive Switching Materials and Devices: From Memories to Memristors

“…These differences can be critical in understanding the underlying mechanism of the imaged devices, or even changes their final functions. Thus, special care should be taken to conduct the imaging experiment, and compromise is necessary between the ideal real [82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100] device and the sample for imaging.…”