Symposium NM5—Nanomembrane Materials—From Fabrication to Application

This symposium will represent nanomembranes materials from fabrication and device to application. The recent development of nanoscience incorporates a growing focus on sheets with nanoscale thicknesses, referred to as nanomembranes. The term “nanomembrane” can be defined as the membranes with thickness in the range of one to a few hundred nanometers, and is normally isolated from its environment at both sides (e.g. by air, vacuum or a dissimilar other material). Such nanomembrane materials have practical appeal because their two-dimensional geometries facilitate integration into devices, with realistic pathways to manufacturing. The structures feature sizes between the atomic scale and macro scale and therefore may have properties different from those they exhibit on a purely macro scale due to differences in size and surface properties.

Many advanced materials have begun to be studied in the format of nanomembranes and includes a wide variety of inorganic materials as well as organic materials including biomimetic 2D materials. Nanomembranes can be distributed over large areas, folded into various shapes and wrapped onto curvilinear surfaces. These features enable nanomembranes highly attractive in flexible electronics, bio-integrated systems, nanophotonics, robotics and etc. The topical list for this symposium reflects this need with increased emphasis on from the fabrications of directed/guided assembly, origami/kirigami, lift-off and transfer, rolled-up nanotech, layer-by-layer (LBL) to the applications in e.g. transferrable photonics devices, lab-in-a-tube, transient electronics, wearable electronics, cell culture scaffolds, sensors and actuators.