Graphene Transparent Conductive Electrodes

Currently, technologists use a solution of indium oxide to fabricate these devices. However, the material is rare, expensive, and brittle. It also does not offer the level of transparency required by scientists to capture certain wavelength bands. With FY11 and FY12 CIF resources, the team set up fabrication facilities and began producing relatively large pieces of graphene using exfoliation and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which is considered a more efficient method for creating the material. With CVD, technicians place a metal substrate into a vacuum chamber and inject gases that then react or decompose to produce the desired deposit. After tweaking the recipe, the team successfully fabricated relatively large pieces of CVD-produced graphene and transferred them to the desired electrode substrates.

The team believes the technology is a viable alternative for a number of missions, including the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO), the Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST), and other dark energy missions.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.