Deposition equipment maker Aixtron SE of Herzogenrath, Germany is participating as a key partner in the recently announced European Union (EU) Future Emerging Technology (FET) flagship project ‘Graphene’. As part of the consortium, Aixtron will bring its expertise in deposition processes for graphene and shall lead the production workpackage of the project.
“Our key contribution is to enable high-quality large-scale graphene growth through the development of next-generation deposition equipment,” says Dr Ken Teo, director of Nanoinstruments at Aixtron. “Working with graphene thin-film producers, bulk graphene manufacturers and associated partners, graphene will be produced for a variety of applications ranging from wireless communications to display, sensing and energy storage. This is a unique opportunity for us to interact with and understand the requirements of R&D and industrial end-users,” he adds.
“For a disruptive new material such as graphene, long-term investment is required to create the entire value chain and end-market applications,” comments Aixtron’s chief operating officer Dr Bernd Schulte. “Support for the Graphene Flagship over the next decade by the EU is indeed a significant commitment that makes this possible,” he adds. “The development furthermore confirms Aixtron’s long-term strategy in enabling the deposition of new electronic materials such as graphene.
Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, with professor Jari Kinaret as the flagship director, will coordinate 126 academic and industrial research groups in 17 European countries. The EU funding for the academic-industrial consortium starts with an initial 30-month EU budget of €54m, which will be extended up to 10 years with €1bn total project cost, with further contributions coming from the Horizon 2020 program and local programs from various EU countries.