In-situ TEM study of the dynamic behavior of the graphene-metal interface evolution under Joule heating

The dynamic behavior of the interface between few layer graphene(FLG) and tungsten metal tips under Joule heating has been studied by in-situ transmission electron microscopy(TEM) method. High-resolution and real-time observations show the tungsten tip ‘swallow' carbon atoms of the FLG and ‘spit' graphite shells at its surface. The tip was carbonized to tungsten carbide(WC, W_2 C and WC_x) after this process. A carbon diffusion mechanism has been proposed based on the diffusion of carbon atoms through the tungsten tip and separation from the surface of the tip. After Joule heating, the initial FLG-metal mechanical contact was transformed to FLG-WCx-W contact, which results in significant improvement on electrical conductivity at the interface.

A mixed-coordination electron trapping-enabled high-precision touch-sensitive screen for wearable devices

Touch-sensitive screens are crucial components of wearable devices.Materials such as reduced graphene oxide(rGO),carbon nanotubes(CNTs),and graphene offer promising solutions for flexible touch-sensitive screens.However,when stacked with flexible substrates to form multilayered capacitive touching sensors,these materials often suffer from substrate delamination in response to deformation;this is due to the materials having different Young’s modulus values.Delamination results in failure to offer accurate touch screen recognition.In this work,we demonstrate an induced charge-based mutual capacitive touching sensor capable of high-precision touch sensing.This is enabled by electron trapping and polarization effects related to mixed-coordinated bonding between copper nanoparticles and vertically grown graphene nanosheets.Here,we used an electron cyclotron resonance system to directly fabricate graphene-metal nanofilms(GMNFs)using carbon and copper,which are firmly adhered to flexible substrates.After being subjected to 3000 bending actions,we observed almost no change in touch sensitivity.The screen interaction system,which has a signal-to-noise ratio of 41.16 dB and resolution of 650 dpi,was tested using a handwritten Chinese character recognition trial and achieved an accuracy of 94.82%.Taken together,these results show the promise of touch-sensitive screens that use directly fabricated GMNFs for wearable devices.