Graphene, two dimensional sheet of carbon atoms has recently gained attention as some of its properties are promising for electronics applications e.g. higher mobility that translates to higher operating frequency for devices geared towards radio frequency applications. Excellent optical transmittance combined with its semi metallic behavior makes it an important material for transparent contacts in solar cells. To bring graphene to the production level, synthesis methods are needed for its growth on wafer scale. It has been shown that chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is one of the techniques that can potentially synthesize wafer scale graphene. Recently copper has gained popularity as an important substrate material for graphene growth due to its lower carbon solubility, which allows better control over number of graphene layers. Here we report optimization of graphene growth on copper foils with our home made atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) setup. Graphene growth on copper under APCVD was non self-limiting similar to other reports. It was found that apart from growth parameters surface texture plays a very important role in graphene growth. In fact, few layer and bilayer graphene were obtained on the regions where copper surface was not uniform, confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. To improve copper surface texture thin layer of copper film was evaporated by electron beam evaporation before the graphene growth process. After this modification, monolayer graphene was obtained on areas as large as 300 um × 300 um confirmed by Raman area maps. Graphene transfer procedure was also optimized so that graphene on metal surface could be transferred to insulating substrate

This paper presents new bonding and surface modification methods for plastic substrates utilizing atmospheric pressure plasma (AP plasma) treatment. Three kinds of AP plasma equipments including after-glow discharge, dielectric barrier discharge and flame type are tested and evaluated for their feasibility of microfluidic device fabrication. The experimental results show that the DBD plasma equipment is the most suitable one for microfluidic applications due to its low temperature and high treating level. Three kinds of polymenr including PMMA, PC and PDMS are used as the sample substrates for evaluating the performance of AP plasma in this study. Experimental results show that the polymer surface turns into hydrophilic after AP plasma treatment. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) inspection indicates that a new peak corresponding to -C-OH functional group is generated at the wavenumber of 1040 cm-1 after AP plasma treatment. X-ray photoelectron spectrum investigation also shows that the O/C (atom ratio) is 3.5-fold incensement in compare with the bare sample. SEM and AFM observations are utilized to evaluate the surface morphology change after plasma treatment. The measured surface roughness is at the level of several nanometers which is acceptable for most microfluidic applications. We develop two simple and high strength bonding methods for sealing microfluidic deivices in this study. The bonding process can be achieved in 6 minutes and bonding strength of 1.69 MPa and 3.81 MPa can be obtained using direct plasma bonding and ethyl alcohol assisted bonding, respectively. The bonding strength obtained using ethyl alcohol assisted bonding technique reported in this study is the highest one that ever been reported. The feasibility of AP plasma treatment for sealing microfluidic chips are confirmed by three examples including two novel passive microfluidic mixers and one cross-type micro CE chip. Experimental result shows that the mixing performance of the micromixer can reach up to 90% at an operation condition of a low Reynolds number of 4. In addition, micro CE chip sealed with the proposed method can successfully inject and separate dye sample with a long-term stability upto 30 minutes. Separation of 100 bp standard DNA sample of 100 bp to 3000 is also successfully demonstrated with high separation efficiency. It is the author¡¦s firm believes that the proposed bonding method will give substaintial impact on the fabrication of microfluidic device in the future.

No description available.

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-270).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-193).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-169).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1994. / Typescript. Bibliography: leaves 100-103. Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--United States Naval Postgraduate School, 1966. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 36).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Guosheng Liu, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Meteorology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 25, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains xix, 150 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-215).