(185a) NSEF Young Investigator Award Winner: Nanoscale science and Engineering of Atomically Thin Membranes for Next-generation Healthcare, Energy, & Environmental Applications

Atomically thin 2D materials offer fundamentally new opportunities to study, understand and control mass transport at the sub-nanometer-scale. Specifically, they allow for quantum tunneling and size-selective ionic/molecular sieving. I will discuss our recent work in 2D material synthesis and processing to enable i) large-area atomically thin Helium barriers, ii) fully functional nanoporous atomically thin membranes for desalination, dialysis and molecular separations, iii) in-situ bottom-up formation of precise nanopores in 2D materials, iv) development of facile methods to probe sub-nanometer scale defects in centimeter scale 2D-single-crystals, v) roll-to-roll manufacturing of atomically thin membranes, vi) novel size selective defect sealing for functional large-area 2D membranes and vii) sub-atomic species transport through atomically thin membranes for advancing energy conversion/storage applications. Finally, I will discuss some of our efforts to move these technologies from the lab space to the commercial arena.