Singapore researchers find further use for graphene

This was achieved by attaching a layer of graphene on diamond and heating the bonded materials to high temperatures, after which water molecules trapped between them became highly corrosive.

This discovery, led by led by Professor Loh Kian Ping, is claimed to have wide-ranging industrial applications, from environmentally-friendly degradation of organic wastes to laser-assisted etching of semiconductor or dielectric films.

The findings were published online in Nature Communications with Ms Candy Lim Yi Xuan, a Ph.D. candidate at the NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering as the first author.

While diamond is known to be a material with superlative physical qualities, little is known about how it interfaces with graphene, the one-atom thick substance composed of pure carbon.

A team of scientists from NUS, Bruker Singapore and Hasselt University Wetenschapspark in Belgium, sought to explore what happens when a layer of graphene, behaving like a soft membrane, is attached on diamond. To encourage bonding between the two rather dissimilar carbon forms, the researchers heated them to high temperatures.