Graphene integrated with silicon electronics

Good afternoon, in this first Archer Newsletter for 2022, we highlight a wonderful achievement in the development of the Company’s biochip, with the Archer team successfully integrating a single-atom-thick graphene sheet on a silicon wafer.

The foundry-based work was the culmination of a lot of strategic planning and coordination involving talented people, world-class facilities, and technology.

Some shareholders may recall their visits to the semiconductor prototyping foundry facilities we operate from in Sydney that are equipped with multi-million dollar instruments.

It was in these facilities that Archer staff used a state-of-the-art electron beam lithography system to repeatably and reproducibly fabricate the graphene devices. The work represents a significant technical achievement as it required the precision engineering of atomically thin materials and devices that are fundamental to the scalability, biosensing functionality, and operation of the biochip.

It has been over a decade now since my work on graphene was published in the prestigious scientifically peer-reviewed Nature Nanotechnology, outlining the first method to chemically produce graphene in-bulk quantities without the use of graphite.

Graphene is an advanced material with electronic properties on the nanoscale that make its use for biosensing highly advantageous, and Archer intends to use graphene in its biochip technology as an ultrasensitive sensor for detecting and analysing diseases.

Shareholders may have noticed some impressive work published in Nature Communications about ‘nanobubbles’ that is widely relevant in the development of technologies requiring fluids on microscales (e.g. biochips), which was an outcome of an Archer staff member’s PhD candidature, completed immediately prior to joining Archer.

We’re proud to have such high-calibre, multidisciplinary expertise at Archer advancing our tech development, and we look forward to growing the team in 2022.

Sincerely,

Dr Mohammad Choucair, FRACI FRSN GAICD
Chief Executive Officer
Archer Materials Limited (ASX: AXE)

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