Tomáš Mančal: Funding for Fluorographene research continues

The main funding agency in Czech Republic, the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) will fund a three years old Fluorographene project of our group.

Fig 1: A: Elementary cell of fluorographene, B: Two perylene-like defects in fluorographene. C: Energy spectrum of a donor-middle conveyor-acceptor (DMA) system build out of perylene- and anthantherene-like defects. D: One possible arrangement of a DMA system in space.

Since 2014, we have tested some idea of using defects in two-dimensional graphene derivative, fluorographene, as a biomimetic light-harvesting medium. We have prepared theoretical tools for studying this novel material, and completed an initial study proving the working principles of the fluorographene light-harvesting antenna. The initial funding, provided by the Neuron Fund for Support of Science ends in December 2017.

This year we applied for further funding with the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) and in December we finally got the news of funding approval. Between 2018-2020, we will continue the fluorographene research under a new project 18-18022S Graphene-based Biomimetic Light-Harvesting Systems. The grant will fund one post-doc position which is now announced in section Open Positions on the research group web page.