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","parentProgram":{"ableToSelect":false,"isActive":true,"description":"Catalyst is a portfolio of early stage programs that specialize in different innovation constituencies and mechanisms to push the state of the art in aerospace technology development","programId":92327,"responsibleMd":{"canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":""},"title":"Catalyst","acronymOrTitle":"Catalyst"},"parentProgramId":92327,"programId":69,"responsibleMd":{"organizationId":4875,"organizationName":"Space Technology Mission Directorate","acronym":"STMD","organizationType":"NASA_Mission_Directorate","canUserEdit":false,"locationEdit":false,"organizationRolePretty":"","organizationTypePretty":"NASA Mission Directorate"},"responsibleMdOffice":4875,"stockImageFileId":36658,"title":"Space Technology Research Grants","acronymOrTitle":"STRG"},"description":"This project proposes collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA to design and fabricate a self-powered sensor using two dimensional (2D) materials including Tungsten Diselenide (WSe2), Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2), and graphene. In particular it will focus on the optimization of a 2D material energy harvester and chemical sensor to demonstrate a specific system for which 2D materials have unique advantages over their competitors and immediate benefits in their application. Self-powered sensing systems can be incorporated into embedded systems that monitor the structural integrity of spacecraft, sample the chemistry of a foreign environment, or keep track of an astronaut's health through smart textiles. To accomplish such a goal, this project will focus on studying the material characteristics of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown 2D materials and from this point develop devices that can harvest energy from their environment and power a semiconducting sensing component. This project will be divided into five areas of development: (1) I will need to develop a standard, clean and repeatable process for working with transferred CVD material. I will especially need to investigate device passivation layers needed to achieve optimal device performance. My colleagues have done extensive work on this for MoS2, however I would need to extend this knowledge in working with CVD grown WSe2. Work in this portion of the project will involve short loop processes and extensive characterization. (2) The second task will be to develop computational models of my CVD grown materials to better predict changes in the materials' band structure and resultant transport properties due to material alterations such as strain, passivation, and chemical doping. Once I begin testing fabricated devices, I will also develop upon compact models that my colleagues have developed for MoS2 transistors to better understand how my devices will behave in a circuit. I will collaborate with another lab that specializes in density functional theory to develop the previously mentioned materials models. (3) In parallel to task 2 and using the results from task 1, I will begin experimental work to develop chemical sensors. These sensors will be designed to optimize their stability, sensitivity, response time, and selectivity. (4) The fourth task will be to work on an energy harvesting device. The goal here is to aim for both open circuit voltage and high short circuit current to supply useable power to a load circuit. My first focus will be on photovoltaics, as 2D materials, in particular WSe2, show unique promise in this area to create thin, flexible, high efficiency and stable solar cells. I will also look into the possibility of generating power through chemical gradients as this is a viable alternative energy source for circuits exposed to wet or highly acidic/basic environments. (5) The final culminating task will be to integrate the energy harvesting component with the chemical sensor. This portion of the project will aim to demonstrate the applicability and value of 2D materials as the foundation of a distributed sensing network circuit block. It will require technology and expertise developed from the previous four steps. This project brings together Electrical and Materials Engineering disciplines to probe the capabilities of 2D materials to harvest energy and collect data. Success in this project will enhance our knowledge of the characteristics of and methodology needed to develop a self-powered system, and finally give us the potential to develop custom ubiquitous electrical systems that can aid all avenues of space exploration that require sensing capabilities. In the future, distributed sensor networks based on this technology could be discretely incorporated into everyday objects, making them \"smart\" to enhance users' interactions with their environment.
","benefits":"Self-powered sensing systems can be incorporated into embedded systems that monitor the structural integrity of spacecraft, sample the chemistry of a foreign environment, or keep track of an astronaut's health through smart textiles. Success in this project will enhance our knowledge of the characteristics of and methodology needed to develop a self-powered system, and finally give us the potential to develop custom ubiquitous electrical systems that can aid all avenues of space exploration that require sensing capabilities. In the future, distributed sensor networks based on this technology could be discretely incorporated into everyday objects, making them \"smart\" to enhance users' interactions with their environment.
","releaseStatus":"Released","status":"Completed","destinationType":["Mars","Earth","Moon_and_Cislunar"],"trlBegin":2,"trlCurrent":3,"trlEnd":3,"favorited":false,"detailedFunding":false,"programContacts":[{"contactId":183514,"canUserEdit":false,"firstName":"Hung","lastName":"Nguyen","fullName":"Hung D Nguyen","fullNameInverted":"Nguyen, Hung D","middleInitial":"D","email":"hung.d.nguyen@nasa.gov","receiveEmail":"Subscribed_User","programContactRole":"Program_Manager","programContactId":162,"programId":69,"programContactRolePretty":"Program Manager","projectContactRolePretty":""},{"contactId":321177,"canUserEdit":false,"firstName":"Matthew","lastName":"Deans","fullName":"Matthew C Deans","fullNameInverted":"Deans, Matthew C","middleInitial":"C","email":"matthew.c.deans-1@nasa.gov","receiveEmail":"Subscribed_User","programContactRole":"Program_Director","programContactId":267,"programId":69,"programContactRolePretty":"Program Director","projectContactRolePretty":""}],"endDateString":"Jul 2021","startDateString":"Aug 2017"},"technologyOutcomeDate":"2021-07-31","technologyOutcomePath":"Closed_Out","details":"The NASA NSTRF proposal entitled 2D Materials for Energy Harvesting and Sensing aimed to develop electronic devices using 2D materials for a self-powered sensing system that can conform to an arbitrary surface and monitor its environment. The first half of the project focused on developing ultrathin film Tungsten Diselenide (WSe2) solar cells, while the second half of the project focused on developing 2D material and other thin film infrared detectors. The Pt/WSe2 vertical schottky junction solar cells were fabricated and characterized to better understand the performance limitations and possibility of EQE, short circuit current and open circuit voltage improvement via surface passivation techniques. Specific accomplishments within this subproject include: (1) identifying an optimal WSe2 absorber thickness and (2) showing that the devices’ photovoltaic performance can be improved via Al2O3 passivation, which increases the EQE from 17.2% up to 29.5 % at 410 nm wavelength incident light. The overall resulting short circuit current improves through antireflection coating, surface doping, and surface trap passivation effects. Thanks to the Al2O3 coating, this work demonstrated a device with open circuit voltage (VOC) of 380 mV and short circuit current density (JSC) of 10.7 mA/cm2. In addition, the impact of Schottky barrier height inhomogeneity at the Pt/WSe2 contact was investigated as a source of open circuit voltage lowering in these devices. The second half of this project focused on the design and fabrication of two different types of infrared detectors: (1) a molecular junction bolometer (MJB) and (2) a pyroelectric (PE) gated MoS2 transistor. In addition, we developed a data processing scheme based on compressive sensing techniques to use an electric-field tunable bilayer graphene detector to reconstruct sparse signals in the 10 μm – 20 μm band with high accuracy. The proof-of-concept molecular junction bolometer is a metal – self-assembled monolayer (SAM) – metal suspended tunnel junction. Incident infrared light is absorbed in the metal arms, causing the material to expand and close the SAM nanogap. This then leads to a large increase in the tunneling current through the device. Thus far, we have demonstrated devices with temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) as high as 28 %/K. In addition, we have characterized the low frequency 1/f noise in our devices and have found that both SAM growth across the nanogap junction and increasing the thickness of the metal cantilever arms can reduce high frequency noise. At 10 kHz, the 1/f noise is at 10x the shot noise level. Our calculations show that these devices can have thermal time constant limited bandwidths of up to 1 MHz. Our experimental results show that these devices have the potential to be several times faster than the than state of the art (with time constants on the order of 1 ms or larger) and also more sensitive due to the large TCR. In addition to the molecular junction bolometer, we have been developing pyroelectric (PE) gated MoS2 transistors for mid-infrared detection. Our material stack consists of a TiN gate, 10 nm thick hafnium zirconium oxide (Hf0.5Zr0.5O2), 10 nm non-ferroelectric oxide, and the semiconductor layer. These devices offer new functionality in that they can be operated as photoconductor detectors at shorts wavelengths (with energy greater than the semiconductor bandgap), and therefore are not limited by the background fluctuation noise. Meanwhile, the PE MoS2 transistor’s large TCR can enable Johnson Noise limited detectivities that can compete with the state of the art, while maintaining sub-1ms speeds. Early stage measurements show that we can achieve TCR values as high as 4.5 %/K at room temperature when biased in the subthreshold regime, which is greater than the state of the art ~2.5 %/K of vanadium oxide bolometers. Furthermore, we have demonstrated ferroelectric switching behavior in our devices that indicates the quality of our fabrication process. Ongoing work is being done to further characterize the TCR, detectivity, and time constants of these devices. Finally, we have explored signal processing techniques that can enable nm scale resolution sparse signal hyperspectral imaging using a gate tunable bilayer graphene device fabricated by Prof. Long Ju’s group at MIT. Exciton peaks in the 10 μm to 20 μm band can be blue-shifted by applying a large electric field (0.5 V/nm – 1.5 V/nm) across the active material. Simulations show that, by using a compressive sensing technique, we can reconstruct a signal of five superimposed gaussians with 10% broadband background noise. It is therefore possible to use a small array of programmable bilayer graphene photodetectors for either high spatial resolution or high temporal resolution hyperspectral imaging depending on the application of interest. No other infrared sensing technology that has this kind of functionality is currently available. We are continuing to explore the algorithm development and device characterization. Benefits from Further Development and Application: WSe2 and other Transition Metal Dichalcogenide (TMD) solar cells have the potenial to offer high efficiency with a thin form factor due to the large absorption coefficient in the visible wavelengths, enabling microscale sensing systems and self-powered flexible electronics. The detailed passivation study conducted in this work will be beneficial for improving the performance of single material, heterostructure, and tandem devices. The thermal infrared detector devices that we have fabricated have the potential to either compete or outperform the state of the art in terms of both speed and sensitivity. Furthermore, 2D-material based infrared detectors can offer new functionality as demonstrated by the gate tunable bilayer graphene detectors.","infoText":"Closed out","infoTextExtra":"Project closed out","isIndirect":false,"technologyOutcomeRationalePretty":"","infusionPretty":"","isBiDirectional":false,"technologyOutcomeDateString":"Jul 2021","technologyOutcomeDateFullString":"July 2021","technologyOutcomePartnerPretty":"","technologyOutcomePathPretty":"Closed Out"}],"libraryItems":[{"files":[],"libraryItemId":367863,"title":"Project Website","libraryItemType":"Link","url":"https://www.nasa.gov/strg#.VQb6T0jJzyE","projectId":93988,"internalOnly":false,"publishedDateString":"","entryDateString":"01/22/25 01:10 AM","libraryItemTypePretty":"Link","modifiedDateString":"10/25/24 02:23 PM"}],"states":[{"abbreviation":"MA","country":{"abbreviation":"US","countryId":236,"name":"United States"},"countryId":236,"name":"Massachusetts","stateTerritoryId":30,"isTerritory":false}],"endDateString":"Jul 2021","startDateString":"Aug 2017"}}