University of Patras

The Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials lab headed by Prof. Dr. Galiotis conducts active research in 2D materials such as graphene, MoS₂ etc and carbon nanotubes. It is also a center of excellence for composites research such as graphitic/polymer nanocomposites and conventional carbon and Kevlar composites. The composites group is renowned for its achievements in stress/strain measurements in fibrous composites using laser Raman microscopy and has received over 3000 citations for related work. The expertise gained over many years of composites research particularly on graphite-based materials has been put into good use in research in carbon nanotubes and graphene and associated nanocomposites.

The group manages a whole suite of Raman instrumentation which will be employed for the tasks of the project and include 1 Invia Renishaw, 1 AFM-Raman, 2 remote probe equipment (Renishaw and Jobin Yvonne) and another triple J-Y Raman Spectrograph. It also operates a brand-new Brucker Fast-Scan AFM, a whole suite of CVD furnaces of 2D material production (1 AIXTRON Black Magic, 1 vertical furnace and 2 home-made furnaces for small specimens). These are very useful for parallel ex situ studies in the project. Other equipment that may be useful for the work described here are XPS, XRD, SEM but also dedicated equipment for composites research such as a semi-industrial autoclave, and a whole suite of mechanical frames. Other characterization facilities such as HR-TEM, NMR and electrical characterization will also be available at the University of Patras.