Ago Laboratory, Global Innovation Center, Kyushu University

About us

Introduction: Advanced Nanomaterials Science Lab is led by Prof. Hiroki Ago at Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Japan. We are focusing on exploring fundamentals and applications of carbon materials, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, and new type of inorganic nanosheets.

Key words: carbon electronics, graphene, metal dichalcogenides, atomic sheet, carbon nanotubes, crystal growth, CVD, nanotechnology, transistors, molecular electronics

2.5DM project: From Sepetember 2021, we started a new project, "Science of 2.5 Dimensional Materials: Paradigm Shift of Materials Science for Future Social Innovation" led by Prof. Ago.
(Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas（A), supported by MEXT, Japan)

News & Topics

2024/2/16
Our work on tape transfer of 2D materials has been published in Nature Electronics. We achieved large-scale and clean transfer of various 2D materials using the special tapes whose adhesive force can be tuned by UV light.
2024/1/25
Our collaborative work with AIST, Osaka Univ., Tokyo Polytech. Univ., and Taiwan National Tsing Hua Univ. is published Nature Communications. We found unique high-density alkali metal intercalation in bilayer graphene.
2023/11/7
Our review article（van der Waals heterostructures）has been published in "Encyclopedia of Condensed Matter Physics (2nd edition)"
2023/8/23
Our paper has been published in Physical Review B
2023/4/6
Warm welcome, new master course students, Okonai, Maezawa, Masuda, and Matsuda !
2023/4/6
Warm welcome, new master course students, Okonai, Maezawa, Masuda, and Matsuda !
2023/2/7
Our work in Nature Electronics is highlighted in TechXplore.
2023/2/7
Our paper is published in Nature Electronics and highlighted in News and Views. This is the collaboration with Prof. Suenaga (Osaka Univ.) and Dr. Y.-C. Lin (AIST).
2023/1/10
Collaboative research with Arizona State Univ. and Los Alamos Lab. has been published in Phys. Rev. Appl.
2022/10/3
New PhD course students, Vanessa (Singapore) and Jung (South Korea), and secretary of "2.5D materials" project), Natsuko, have joined our lab. Warm welcome!
2022/9/27
Our work is highlighted as supplementary cover of ACS Nano
2022/9/7
Prof. Ago has become a member of Qunatum Computing System Center, Kyushu University.
2022/8/17
Hsin's paper about unique hBN etching by metal nanoplates is published in RSC Advances. This is collaboration with Prof. Hibino (Kwansei Gakuin Univ).
2022/8/4
Our new paper is published in ACS Nano. This is collaboration with Profs. Okada (Tsukuba Univ), Suenaga (Osaka Univ), Matsumoto (Tokyo Polytechnic Univ), and Dr. Lin (AIST).
2022/8/1
Open position　We are recruiting a new postdoc fellow starting from October 2022 or later. Please directly contact Prof. Ago.
2022/6/3
Warm welcome, a new PhD student, Ma Zongpeng coming from China
2022/5/13
Visiting professor, Prof. Hsiang-Lin Liu (National Taiwan Normal Univeristy), arrives our lab and will stay until January 2023 during his sabbatical. Welcome!
2022/4/22
Our review paper published in STAM journal was selected as Editor's Choice and was press released. Graphene-Info, PHYS ORG, asia RESEARCH NEWS.
2022/4/19
Our review paper on the new KAKENHI (MEXT) Program, "Science of 2.5D Materials", has been published in Sci. Tech. Adv. Mater. This paper introdues our new project and proposes a novel concept of "2.5D materials".

2022/4/7
Our paper on the machine learning analysis of graphene is highlighted by AZO NANO

2022/4/6
Warm welcome, new master course students, Emoto and Kuroki !

2022/4/1
Dr. Pablo is appointed as a Research Associate Professor of Kyushu University

2022/1/19
Pablo's new paper on the determination of twist angle of bilayer graphene by machine learning and Raman spectroscopy has been published in ACS Appl. Nano Mater..

2021/12/10
Our new paper on the observation of coupling and decoupling in bilayer graphene has been published in Nano Letters. This is the collaboration with Prof. Suenaga (Osaka Univ), Dr. Lin (AIST), and Prof. Matsumoto (Tokyo Polytechnic Univ).

2021/10/25
Prof. Ago introduced the new project "Science of 2.5 Dimensional Materials", at Japan-EU Flagship workshop (online).

2021/10/19
Our new finding of new 2D structures in confined nanospace of bilayer graphene has been published in Advanced Materials. This is the collaboration with Prof. Suenaga (Osaka Univ), Dr. Lin (AIST), Prof. Krasheninnikov (Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf) and Prof. Matsumoto (Tokyo Polytechnic Univ).

2021/9/16
We start the new KAKENHI project, Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas（A), "Science of 2.5 Dimensional Materials: Paradigm Shift of Materials Science Toward Future Social Innovation", which is supported by MEXT. Now, 20 researchers are collaborating in this project, and we have 20 more researchers from the next year. Prof. Ago is a leader of this project.

2021/9/7
Prof. Ago gave an invited talk at SSDM2021 (online)

2021/8/26
Prof. Ago gave a plenary talk at 2DMAT2021, which is held both online and in Paris.

2021/6/8
On June 10, Ago is giving an invited talk at 2D Experimental Pilot Line (2D-EPL) workshop of EU Graphene Flagship（Wafer Level Single Crystalline 2D Materials event). Details and registraion are here.

2021/4/5
Three new master couse students, Otsu, Kusunose, Nakayama, have joined our lab. Welcome!

2021/4/1
Warm welcome, Dr. Taira, from Univ. Tokyo! He is appointed as a JSPS Fellow.

2021/3/30
Hyungoo's new paper on the artificially stacked bilayer WS2 has been published in ACS Applied Nano Materials. Hyungoo is now in EPFL, Switzerland.

2021/3/24
Koki and Syota received the master degrees. Congratulations and good luck at the new places!!

2020/12/21
Our paper collaborated with Prof. Kishida of Nagoya University has been published in Journal of Physical Chemistry C. This is the collaboration with Prof. Schluze of Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering, Germany.

2020/11/30
Rasel's paper on the water purification using h-BN membranes has been published in Chemical Engineering Journal. This is the collaboration with Prof. Schluze of Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering, Germany.

2020/11/4
Congraturations! Pablo received Osawa Encouragement Award from the Fullerene-Nanotube-Graphene Research Society, Japan for his bilayer graphene research

2020/10/31
Our paper on multilayer h-BN growth is highlighted as a journal cover of ACS Appl. Electron. Mater.

2020/10/22
Prof. Ago gave a Keynote talk at the h-BN Workshop of Graphene2020 by online.

2020/9/30
Hyungoo and Ufuk recieved the PhD degrees from Kyushu University. They join A. Kis lab. in EPFL and NTT research lab., respectively. Good luck with their future!!

2020/9/22
Former graduate student, Yuki's new paper on the growth of uniform multilayer h-BN has been published in ACS Appl. Electron. Mater.

2020/9/22
Ufuk's new paper on the CVD growth and optical properties of 2D perovskites has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. This is the collaboration with Prof. Nishibori of Tsukuba University.

2020/8/20
Hyungo and Ufuk have finished the final defense (public) for their PhD degrees.

2020/5/19
Congratulations, Pablo and Yuri, for the publication in ACS Nano! We develped a new method to control the stacking order of bilayer graphene which can be useful for semiconductor applications. This is the collaboration with Tokyo Univ., AIST, and Kwansei Gauin Univ.

2020/5/5
Our new paper has been published in ACS Omega. This is the collaboration with Prof. Takahashi of Kyushu University, supported by JST-CREST project.

2020/4/25
Our new paper has been published in ACS Nano. This is the collaboration with Dr. Suenaga and Yung-Chang (AIST) and many teams in South Korea and Taiwan.

2020/4/1
Warm welcome to Yuji, Tohru (master course), and Hsin (research student from Taiwan). Welcome to our team!!

2020/3/4
<OPEN POSITION>
JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : one position is avaliable for the next submission from our group (starting from October 2020 for 2 years). Please contact Prof. Ago for this application (deadline of the contact is March 16, 2020). Currently, one of our lab members, Dr. Das, is supported by this JSPS Fellowship.

2019/12/16
Our new paper has been published in Nano Energy. This is the collaboration with Prof. Ohno and Dr. Aji of Nagoya Univ, and highlighted in many medias.

2019/10/21
Ufuk's paper has been published in ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. This is the collaboration with Kyoto Univ., Tsukuba Univ., and AIST.

2019/10/16
Hyungoo's paper has been highlighted as Inside Back Cover of Adv. Mater.

2019/10/15
Our previous paper published in Chem. Soc. Rev. has been selected as top 5% highly cited paper in Royal Society of Chemistry journals.

2019/10/11
Prof. Ago gave an invited talk at RPGR2019.

2019/9/6
Hyungoo's paper has been published in Adv. Mater. This is the collaboration with Tokyo Metropolitan Univ., Tsukuba Univ., and Kyushu Synchrotron Light Res. Center.

2019/9/5
Prof. Ago gave an invited talk at SSDM2019.

2019/7/25
Alex's paper has been published in Nanoscale. This is the collaboration with AIST and Kwansei Gakuin Univ.

2019/6/6
We have "35th nanotech seminar" by Dr. Suenaga and Dr. Yung-Chang from AIST.

2019/4/18
We support the submission to JSPS Fellowship (postdoc position) which starts from April, 2020. The detailed information is here. Please contact us.

2019/4/16
Welcome back, Satoshi (technical staff), to our team !!

2019/4/3
Warm welcome to Koki, Shota (master course) and Hitomi (technical assistant). Welcome to our team!!

2019/3/20
Yuki has received the PhD degree. Masato, Syun, and Daichi received the master degrees. Congratulations and good luck in new places!!

2019/3/15
Our new paper has been published in Scientific Reports. This is the collaboration with Shibaura Inst. Tech. and Tsukuba Univ.

2019/2/4
Our new paper has been published in Science Advanced. This is the collaboration with AIST. This work is press released by Kyushu Univ. and AIST (both in Japanese).

2019/2/3
Our new paper has been published in npj 2D Mater. and Applications. This is the collaboration with Nagoya, Tsukuba, Tokyo, Hokkaido Univ. and AIST.

2018/9/26
Our new paper has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. This is the collaboration with Tsukuba Univ. and Kyoto Univ.

2018/10/4
We have "34th Nanotechnology Seminar" by Dr. Rozan Mohamad Yunus of National University of Malaysia.

2018/9/26
Our new paper has been published in ACS Nano reporting the highly epitaxial growth of MoS2 atomic layers and the graphene-MoS2 in-plane heterostructure. This is the collaboration with AIST, NPL (UK), Tsukuba Univ., and Kwanseigakuin Univ.

2018/6/16
Our new paper has been published in ACS Nano reporting the CVD synthesis of high-quality, uniform multilayer h-BN which will boost the 2D materials applications.

2018/6/1
Warm welcome to our new member, Dr. Rasel Das (appointed as a JSPS Postdoctroal Fellow)

2018/5/31
Our work on 2D heterostructures is selected as 2018 PCCP HOT Articles

2018/5/28
JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : One position is avaliable for the next submission from our group (Start from April 2019, deadline is August 6. Please contact Prof. Ago by July 15, 2018 for the application from our lab). Detailed information can be found here.

2018/4/16
Welcome back, Pablo!!

2018/4/10
Congraturations! Yuri (master course student) recieved the Young Scientist Poster Award at the 54th Fullerenes-Nanotubes-Graphene General Symposium

2018/4/5
New master course students (Hiroki, Daiki, and Amane) have joined our group. Welcome!

2018/3/30
Our new paper has been published in Nature Communications reporting the ultrahigh speed IR emission from graphene which can be applied to optical communications. This is the collaboration with Prof. Maki (Keio Univ.).

2018/3/22
Our new paper has been published in Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. reporting the moisture barrier properties of monolayer graphene. This is the collaboration with Prof. Ueno (Shibaura Inst. Tech.).

2018/3/15
We had "33rd Nanotechnology Seminar" by Prof. Yutaka Ohno of Naoya University.

2018/3/2
PhD student, Yuki, has visited National Graphene Institute, University of Manchester for one month.

2018/2/27
Our recent work on the intercalation in bilayer graphene has been highlighted by Nature INDEX ("Graphene sandwich fillers have potential").

2018/2/24
JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : One position is avaliable for the next submission from our group (Starting from October 2018, deadline is March 28, 2018. Please contact Prof. Ago by March 10, 2018 for the application from our lab). Detailed information can be found here.

2018/1/17
Dr. Rasel Das (Leibniz Institute for Surface Modification) has recieved the JSPS Fellowship starting from April, 2018. JSPS website

2018/1/4
Our new paper has been published in Chem. Mater.. This is the collaboration with Dr. Suenaga's group (AIST), Prof. Okada's group (Tsukuba Univ.), Prof. Nagashio (Univ. Tokyo), and Dr. Panchal (NPL, UK).

2017/12/28
Our new paper has been published in J. Phys. Chem. C. This is the collaboration with Prof. Hibino (Kwansei Gakuin Univ.).

2017/12/16
Our new paper has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.. This is the collaboration with Prof. Nakashima and Yamamoto (GIC).

2018/11/30
Congraturations! Kenshiro (master course student) recieved Outstanding Paper Award at CSS-EEST19

2017/10/27
Our new paper has been published in Adv. Funct. Mater.. This is the collaboration with Prof. Fukuda (RIKEN).

2017/10/6
Warm welcome, Ufuk (new PhD student) from Turkey!

2017/9/25
Ding recieved PhD and joins Furukawa Battery Co. Good luck!

2017/9/19
Our new paper has been published in Adv. Mater. (IF=19.8). This is the collaboration with Prof. Okada (Tsukuba Univ.), Prof. Matsuo (Univ. Tokyo), and Prof. Matsumoto (Tokyo Polytech. Univ.).

2017/9/4
32nd Nanotechnology seminar by Prof. Yasumitsu Miyata of Tokyo Metropolitan University.

2017/8/3
31st Nanotechnology seminar by Prof. Ozyilmaz Barbaros of National University of Singapore.

2017/7/11
Our new review paper has been published in Chem. Soc. Rev. (IF=38.6). This is co-authored by Pablo (former postdoc) and Mark (Univ. Manchester).

2017/7/5
We recieve new research grant from JSPS (Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory))

2017/6/1
JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : One position is avaliable for the next submission from our group (Start from April 2018, deadline is August 2. Please contact Prof. Ago by July 15, 2017 for the application from our lab). Detailed information can be found here.

2017/5/26
Excellence in Review Award from Chemistry of Materials (ACS)

2017/5/15
Congraturations! Uchida (PhD student) received Young Scientist Presentation Award from The Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP)

2017/5/11
Prof. Ago gave an invited talk in EU Graphene Flagship - Japan Joint Workshop held in Barcelona

2017/4/14
We had a welcome party for the new members

2017/4/7
We had an opening symposium of our Global Innovation Center (GIC)

2017/4/6
New master course students (Akiyama, Oyama, Tanaka) and one research student (Alex) has joined our group. Welcome to the Advanced Nanomaterials Science Lab!

2017/3/28
Congraturations! Nakandakari (master course student) recieved the Young Scientist Poster Award at the 52nd Fullerenes-Nanotubes-Graphene General Symposium

2017/3/13
PhD student, Dong's paper has been published in Appl. Surf. Sci. (Behavior and role of superficial oxygen in Cu for the growth of large single-crystalline graphene). 　Free access until 2017/4/29 is here.

2017/3/13
PhD student, Dong's paper has been published in Appl. Surf. Sci. (Behavior and role of superficial oxygen in Cu for the growth of large single-crystalline graphene). 　Free access until 2017/4/29 is here.

2017/2/28
PhD student, Uchida's paper has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (Epitaxial chemical vapour deposition growth of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride on Cu(111)/sapphire substrate).

2017/1/5
We will have the 30th nanotechnology seminar "Doping and band structure engineering of 2D materials" by Assoc. Prof. S. I. Khondaker of University of Central Florida on Jan. 12 (Thu)

2016/12/1
PhD student, Dong's paper has been published in ACS Nano ("Spatially Controlled Nucleation of Single-Crystal Graphene on Cu Assisted by Stacked Ni"). Congratulations!

2016/10/1
Our research center is reorganized to "Global Innovation Center (GIC)"

2016/8/29
Our former postdoc, Mark Bissett, is appointed as Lecturer in the National Graphene Institute of Manchester University, UK. Good luck with Mark's new lab! His photo in our lab is here

2016/8/1
JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : This has been closed on Aug. 1 (details).

2016/7/12
Our bilayer graphene growth paper is highlighted as a cover of Chem. Mater.

2016/6/29
Our former student, Dr. Rozan, has become a senior lecturer/research fellow in National University of Malaysia. Congratulations and good luck!

2016/6/27
Joint research on electrical and thermal measurements iin suspended monolayer graphene has been published in J. Appl. Phys. . This is the collaboration with Profs. Takamatsu, Wang (Kyushu U.) and Prof. Zhang (Tsinghua U.).

2016/6/6
Our recent paper becomes #1 most read paper in Chem. Mater. June, 2016 (Link).

2016/6/1
Our work on the growth of uniform bilayer graphene has been published in Chem. Mater. This is the collaboration with Profs. Hibino (Kwansei Gakuin U.) and Okada (Tsukuba U.).
Highlighted as ACS Editors' Choice (link). This article becomes an open access paper.

2016/5/27
Joint research on photodynamics in monolayer graphene has been published in J. Phys. Chem. C This is the collaboration with Profs. Koyama, Kishida (Nagoya U.).

2016/4/28
Joint research on spin-charge conversion in graphene has been published in Phys. Rev. Lett. This is the collaboration with Profs. Shiraishi (Kyoto), Kuwabata (Osaka), and Takenobu (Waseda).

2016/4/6
We welcome four new master course students joined in our lab (Masanori, Chiho, Kenshiro, and Yuri).

2016/4/6
We welcome four new master course students joined in our lab (Masanori, Chiho, Kenshiro, and Yuri).

2016/4/1
Our lab has moved to KASTEC (Art, Science and Technology Center for Cooperative Research, Kyushu University)

2016/3/11
Our new paper (visualization of grain structures of 2D materials) is published in ACS Nano

2016/3/1
We had the 28th nanotechnology seminar "Nano spintronics" by Prof. Hirohata of York University, UK

2016/2/24
Joint research (heat transport in suspended graphene) with Profs. Zhang (Tsingha) and Takamatsu (Kyushu) is published in Scientifc Reports

2016/2/1
Pablo's paper (gate-tunable doping of graphene) is published in ACS Nano

2016/1/21
Joint research with Profs. Zhang (Tsingha), Takamatsu, and Takahashi (Kyushu) has been published in Carbon

2015/11/12
We have organized The 6th A3 Symposium on Emerging Materials in our campus. About 90 people joint this Symposium mainly from Korea, China, and Japan.

2015/11/11
Congraturations! Uchida received Best Poster Award at The 6th A3 Symposium on Emerging Materials

2015/10/1
We welocome new members, Hyungoo from South Korea (master course) and Mr. Hino (technical assistant).

2015/9/17
Call for IEI Program with the MEXT scholarship has been anounced from our Graduate School

2015/9/10
Rozan's paper has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. ("Vertical heterostructures of MoS2 and graphene nanoribbons grown by two-step chemical vapor deposition for high-gain photodetectors")

2015/7/24
Ohta's paper has been published in Chem. Mater. ("Growth dynamics of single-layer graphene on epitaxial Cu surfaces")

2015/6/1
Dr. Ago gave an invited talk at ECS 227th Meeting in Chicago

2015/4/30
President of Kyushu University visited our lab

2015/4/8
New master course students joined our lab (Hiroki, Toshiaki, and Sho). Welcome to the Nanomaterials Chemistry Lab!

2015/4/3
The application for the JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers is closed.

2015/3/16
A new book "Frontiers of Graphene and Carbon Nanotubes"has been published from Springer. Prof. Ago wrote the Chapter 1, "CVD Growth of High-Quality Single-Layer Graphene".

2015/3/3
Our new paper has been published in ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces . We created a new two-dimensional heterostructures consisting of two different layered materials, graphene and MoS2.

2015/2/25
Joint research with Prof. Takahashi and Prof. Zhan has been published in J. Appl. Phys.

2015/1/30
Pablo's paper has been published in Nanoscale ("Tunable doping of graphene nanoribbon arrays by chemical functionalization")

2014/12/18
Congraturations! Iwaizako received Best Poster Award at The 15th Ries-Hokudai International Symposium

2014/12/18
Congraturations! Ago recieved excellent research activity award from Kyushu University

2014/10/２７
Joint research with Prof. Shiraishi has been published in Appl. Phys. Lett.

2014/9/29
We welcome new research student, Aji (from Indonesia), and PhD student, Ding (from China). Welocome to CE group!

2014/9/24
Rozan's paper is highlighted in the cover of Chemistry of Materials

2014/8/19
Joint research with Dr. Paredes and Dr. Tascon (INCAR) has been published in Carbon

2014/8/18
Joint research with Prof. Otsuji has been published in Solid-State Electronics

2014/8/1
Congraturations! Our paper published last year receives 2014 JSAP Paper Award
”Epitaxial Growth and Electronic Properties of Large Hexagonal Graphene Domains on Cu(111) Thin Film”, Appl. Phys. Express., 6 75101 (2013) .

2014/7/24
Dr. Ago becomes a member of Editorial Board of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group)

2014/7/10
Our new paper has been published in Carbon

2014/6/25
Our new paper has been published in Chem. Mater.

2014/5/28
Closed: JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : One position is avaliable for the next submission from our group (Start from April 2015, deadline is August 7. Please contact Dr. Ago by July 15, 2014 for the application).

2014/5/26
Our new paper has been published in Nanoscale

2014/5/8
Our Perspective article on strain engineering in graphene and dichalcogenides has been published in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

2014/4/30
Our new website is opened!

2014/4/15
Congraturations! Ogawa received Young Researcher Award at SSDM2013

2014/4/11
We welcome new master course students, Uchida, Shiratsuchi, and Fujita.

2014/3/31
Yui recieved PhD and moves to Cornell University. Good luck!

2014/3/6
JSPS Postdoc Fellowship for Foregin Researchers : one position is avaliable for the next submission from our group (starting from September 2014, deadline is April 2014)

2014/2/27
24th Nanotechnology Seminar by Prof. Hisanori Shinohara (Nagoya Univ.)

2014/2/21
Mark moves to University of Manchester, UK. Good luck!

Contact information

Dr. Hiroki Ago (Distingusihed Professor)
Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University
6-1 Kasuga Park, Kasuga, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan
E-mail: ago.hiroki.974_AT_m.kyushu-u.ac.jp