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K-State Today

July 27, 2020

Doctoral student publishes paper on nanoscience discovery

Submitted by Deb Harper

Pingping Chen, doctoral student in industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, had her work published and named an editor's pick in the July 14 issue of the Journal of Applied Physics.

The article, "High-Field Electromagnetic Radiation Converts Carbon Nanotubes to Nanoribbons Embedded with Carbon Nanocrystals," demonstrates a route to synthesize nanoscale ribbons of graphene that could be building blocks for a number of applications. Graphene, atomic thin carbon arranged in honeycomb geometry, has revolutionized nanoscience since its discovery in 2004, but researchers around the world trying to enable its use for an electronic switch still find it lacking in some of its fundamental physics.

Now a group of K-State researchers, led by Suprem Das, Chen's advising professor, and including Xinya Wang, Shuting Lei and Brice Lacroix, are using ultrafast laser radiation to nano-manufacture graphene nanoribbons and carbon nanocrystals from carbon nanotubes. The group also collaborates with Y. Luan and Zhe Fei at the Iowa State University physics department and the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory for the project.

Chen's paper is part of the special collection on Materials for Quantum Technologies: Computing, Information and Sensing, and the work had been filed as a provisional patent application by K-State Innovation Partners.