Final Report Summary - BIOGRAPHENE (Sequencing biological molecules with graphene)
The focus of my research group from the beginning of the ERC grant till its end was to explore the role and place of organic, supramolecular and physical chemistry in the synthesis, design, operation and efficiency of graphene molecular sensors. My vision is explained in three early invited reviews spanning from the edge chemistry of graphene (ChemPhysChem 2016, 17, 785-801), the surface chemistry of graphene field effect sensors (Advanced Materials 2016, 29, 1603610), and the challenges linked to the fabrication of nanostructured devices based on two-dimensional materials (Chemical Society Reviews 2016, 45, 476-493). The inter-twinning between these three separate research fields is critically important: the chemistry of graphene edges in edge-based sensors defines the sensing response of graphene nanopores and graphene nanogaps; the surface chemistry of graphene is equally important in determining the performance of graphene field-effect transistors (‘Quantum and electrochemical interplays in hydrogenated graphene’ Nature Communications 2018, 9, 793) as to understand biomolecular interaction with graphene in water (‘Hydrophilic graphene’, Advanced Materials, 2018, 30, 1703274). In fact, my research group recently discovered that graphene in water is hydrophilic and fully transparent to both polar and dispersive interactions. Even more importantly, my group now aims at developing new fabrication strategies – fundamentally rooted on chemistry and unconventional nanofabrication (i.e. no requirement of cleanrooms or lithographic equipments) – to design nanopores, nanogaps, nanoporous membranes, and field effect sensors with properties surpassing current devices. Within this research line, in particular my group developed nanopores of finite zero-depth offering the possibility to align graphene tunneling electrodes directly within the nanopore fluidic channel (‘Zero depth interfacial nanopore capillaries’, Advanced Materials 2018, 30, 1703602). Separately, the surface functionalization of graphene with highly-selective hormonal sensitizers (‘Ultrasensitive graphene−copper(I) hybrid’, Nano Letters 2017, 17, 7980-7988) allowed the detection of ethylene at sub 10 ppb levels which represented the start of a new research line in my group: ‘Olfaction on a chip’. On a more technical side, in an effort to make high-quality graphene accessible to a wider community, my group explores cheap synthetic approaches to produce quantities of high-quality graphene (ca. 10 cm2 within two hours; Carbon 2017, 118, 438–442), develops cleaner (ACS Central Science 2016, 2, 904–909) and easier handling processes (Carbon 2017, 118, 556–560; ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2018, 10, 11328-11332). These enabling technologies allow chemists and physicists to study and use high quality graphene for both fundamental and applied research.