Ariel Ismach, Ph.D.

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Tel Aviv University

Speech Title:

2D Materials: Synthesis of Flat and 3D Structures

Abstract:

Following the recent exciting scientific results on graphene, 2D atomic-films in general have attracted extensive interest in the scientific and technological communities due to the wide range of potential properties and thus applications these materials (and their combination) have. Another topic of high scientific and technological interest would be the rational formation of 2D materials-based heterostructures and the implementation of 2D materials into 3D structures for a wide variety of applications, such as composite materials, thermal management, catalysis, electronic and opto-electronic devices, etc. In this talk, I will review recent advances in the growth and characterization of single-and few-layer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Then I will describe our efforts to target the controlled synthesis of TMD-based heterostructures. This we achieved by the sulfurization and selenization of thin metal films pre-deposited on substrates or by the direct chemical vapor deposition using different precursors. The difference in the formation, structure and properties will be described. I will finalize by describing our efforts for the formation of multi-layer graphene-based 3D structures with tailored properties.

Bio:

Dr. Ariel Ismach immigrated to Israel from Argentina. He holds a BEng in Materials Engineering from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and an MA and PhD in Materials and Surfaces from the Faculty of Chemistry, Weizmann Institute. He was awarded a prize from the Israel Chemistry Society for his doctoral thesis on “epitaxial approaches for the self-organization of single-wall carbon nanotubes”. In 2009 he moved to Berkeley for a joint post-doctoral position at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California–Berkeley and the Materials Science Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. In 2011 he joined the group of Prof. Ruoff in the department of Mechanical Engineering, at the University of Texas in Austin, where he leaded a small group of Ph.D. students and postdocs studying the growth and characterization of various 2D materials. He joined the Materials Science and Engineering department at Tel Aviv University in October 2014 where he is establishing a laboratory dedicated to study the growth of 2D atomic-crystals.