Evidence of nanocrystalline semiconducting graphene monoxide during thermal reduction of graphene oxide in vacuum

ACS Nano. 2011 Dec 27;5(12):9710-7. doi: 10.1021/nn203160n. Epub 2011 Nov 28.

Abstract

As silicon-based electronics are reaching the nanosize limits of the semiconductor roadmap, carbon-based nanoelectronics has become a rapidly growing field, with great interest in tuning the properties of carbon-based materials. Chemical functionalization is a proposed route, but syntheses of graphene oxide (G-O) produce disordered, nonstoichiometric materials with poor electronic properties. We report synthesis of an ordered, stoichiometric, solid-state carbon oxide that has never been observed in nature and coexists with graphene. Formation of this material, graphene monoxide (GMO), is achieved by annealing multilayered G-O. Our results indicate that the resulting thermally reduced G-O (TRG-O) consists of a two-dimensional nanocrystalline phase segregation: unoxidized graphitic regions are separated from highly oxidized regions of GMO. GMO has a quasi-hexagonal unit cell, an unusually high 1:1 O:C ratio, and a calculated direct band gap of ∼0.9 eV.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Crystallization / methods*
  • Electric Conductivity
  • Graphite / chemistry*
  • Hot Temperature
  • Macromolecular Substances / chemistry
  • Materials Testing
  • Molecular Conformation
  • Nanostructures / chemistry*
  • Nanostructures / ultrastructure*
  • Oxidation-Reduction
  • Oxides / chemistry
  • Particle Size
  • Semiconductors*
  • Surface Properties
  • Vacuum

Substances

  • Macromolecular Substances
  • Oxides
  • Graphite