Two-beam-laser interference mediated reduction, patterning and nanostructuring of graphene oxide for the production of a flexible humidity sensing device

• Published in: Carbon (New York) Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 1667 - 1673
• Main Authors: Guo, Li, Jiang, Hao-Bo, Shao, Rui-Qiang, Zhang, Yong-Lai, Xie, Sheng-Yi, Wang, Jian-Nan, Li, Xian-Bin, Jiang, Fan, Chen, Qi-Dai, Zhang, Tong, Sun, Hong-Bo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-04-2012; Elsevier
• Subjects: Chemistry; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; Fullerenes and related materials; diamonds, graphite; General and physical chemistry; Graphene; Humidity; Interference; Lasers; Materials science; Nanocomposites; Nanomaterials; Nanostructure; Oxides; Physics; Specific materials; Surface physical chemistry; Water; Polyethylenes; Patterning; Oxygen; Films; Device; Conductivity; Oxides; Nanostructures; Surfactants; Recovery; Substrates; Chemical reduction; Potentials; Adsorption; Response time; Lasers; Humidity; Functional group
• ISSN: 0008-6223; 1873-3891
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2011.12.011

Two-beam-laser interference was used for the simultaneous reduction, patterning and nanostructuring of graphene oxide on flexible polyethylene terephthalate substrates for the production of a high performance humidity sensing device. Hierarchical graphene nanostructures were formed after laser interference treatment of graphene oxide, which holds great promise for gaseous molecular adsorption, and thereby significantly increases their sensing performance. By tuning the laser power, the content of oxygen functional groups, could be changed within a certain range, which contributes not only controllable conductivity but also tunable response/recovery time of the humidity sensor due to the interaction between water molecules and oxygen functional groups on the graphene oxide sheets. The laser interference processing of graphene oxide films is a mask-free, surfactant-free and large-area approach to the production of hierarchical graphene micro-nanostructures, and thus shows great potential for fabrication of future graphene-based microdevices.