A fast, non-destructive test for two-dimensional materials

"In the semiconductor industry, for example, defects are

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important because you can control properties through defects," said Mauricio Terrones, professor of physics, materials science and engineering and chemistry, Penn State. "This is known as defect engineering. Industry knows how to control defects and which types are good for devices."

To really understand what is going on in a 2-D material like tungsten disulfide, which has a single atom-thick layer of tungsten sandwiched between two atomic layers of sulfur, would require a high-power electron microscope capable of seeing individual atoms and the holes, called vacancies, where the atoms are missing.

"The benefit of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is that you get an image and you can see directly what is going on – you get direct evidence," said Bernd Kabius, staff scientist at Penn State's Materials Research Institute, an expert in TEM and a coauthor on the paper appearing April 28 in the online journal Science Advances.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-fast-non-destructive-two-dimensional-materials.html#jCp