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Spectroscopy and Microscopy of Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide

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Graphene Oxide

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) is an important material that provides a scalable approach for obtaining chemically derived graphene. Its optical and electrical properties are largely determined by the presence of oxygen-containing functionalities, which decorate its basal plane. This chemical derivatization results in useful properties such as the existence of a band gap as well as emission spanning both the visible and near infrared. Notably, GO’s optical and electrical properties can be altered through reduction, which proceeds through the removal of these oxygen-containing functional groups. However, widely variable behavior has been observed regarding the evolution of GO’s optical response during reduction. These discrepancies arise from the different reduction methods being used and, in part, from the fact that nearly all prior measurements have been ensemble studies. Consequently, detailed mechanistic studies of GO reduction are needed which can transcend the limitations of ensemble averaging.

In this chapter, we show the spectroscopic evolution of GO’s optical properties during photoreduction at the single-sheet level. Laser-induced reduction, in particular, offers a unique and potentially controllable method for producing reduced GO (rGO), a material with properties similar to those of graphene. However, given the complexity of GO’s photoreduction mechanism, microscopic monitoring of the process is essential to understanding and ultimately exploiting this approach.

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Acknowledgements

MK thanks the ACS PRF (Type ND 51675) and the Army Research Office (W911NF-12-1-0578) for financial support. JHH thanks CONICET for the international cooperation funds [D979 (25-03-2013)], FONCyT for research grant P.BID2012 PICT-2041, and University of Buenos Aires for grants UBACYT 2015-2017 20020130100643BA and UBACYT 01-w971.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Matthew P. McDonald, Yurii Morozov & Masaru Kuno

  2. Department of Physics, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine

    Yurii Morozov

  3. INQUIMAE—Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Analítica y Química Físca, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Jose H. Hodak

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  1. Matthew P. McDonald
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  2. Yurii Morozov
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Correspondence to Masaru Kuno .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Textile Engineering Chemistry & Science, College of Textiles, North Carolina State University, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

    Wei Gao

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McDonald, M.P., Morozov, Y., Hodak, J.H., Kuno, M. (2015). Spectroscopy and Microscopy of Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide. In: Gao, W. (eds) Graphene Oxide. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15500-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15500-5_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15499-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15500-5

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