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Nano Research 2013, 6(11): 842-852 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-013-0362-2
Research Article | Issue | Published: 04 September 2013

Reduced graphene oxide with a highly restored π-conjugated structure for inkjet printing and its use in all-carbon transistors

Show Author's Information Yang Su§,  Jinhong Du§,  Dongming Sun,  Chang Liu,  Huiming Cheng( )
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science Institute of Metal Research Chinese Academy of Sciences 72 Wenhua Road Shenyang 110016 China

§These authors contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
field effect transistor, inkjet printing, graphene oxide, high conductivity
Cite this article:
Su Y, Du J, Sun D, et al. Reduced graphene oxide with a highly restored π-conjugated structure for inkjet printing and its use in all-carbon transistors. Nano Research, 2013, 6(11): 842-852. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-013-0362-2
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

An inkjet-printed graphene film is of great importance for next-generation flexible, low cost and high performance electronic devices. However, due to the limitation of the inkjet printing process, the electrical conductivity of inkjet-printed graphene films is limited to ~10 S·cm–1, and achieving a high conductivity of the printed graphene films remains a big challenge. Here, we develop a "weak oxidation–vigorous exfoliation" strategy to tailor graphene oxide (GO) for meeting all the requirements of highly conductive inkjet-printed graphene films, including a more intact carbon plane and suitable size. The π-conjugated structure of the resulting graphene has been restored to a high degree, and its printed films show an ultrahigh conductivity of ~420 S·cm–1, which is tens of times higher than previously reported results, suggesting that, aside from developing a highly efficient reduction method, tuning the GO structure could be an alternative way to produce high quality graphene sheets. Using inkjet-printed graphene patterns as source/drain/gate electrodes, and semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as channels, we fabricated an all-carbon field effect transistor which shows excellent performance (an on/off ratio of ~104 and a mobility of ~8 cm2·V–1·s–1) compared to previously reported CNT-based transistors, promising the use of nanocarbon materials, graphene and SWCNTs in printed electronics, especially where high performance and flexibility are needed.


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About this article

Reduced graphene oxide with a highly restored π-conjugated structure for inkjet printing and its use in all-carbon transistors

Show Author's information Yang Su§, Jinhong Du§, Dongming Sun, Chang Liu, Huiming Cheng( )
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science Institute of Metal Research Chinese Academy of Sciences 72 Wenhua Road Shenyang 110016 China

§These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

An inkjet-printed graphene film is of great importance for next-generation flexible, low cost and high performance electronic devices. However, due to the limitation of the inkjet printing process, the electrical conductivity of inkjet-printed graphene films is limited to ~10 S·cm–1, and achieving a high conductivity of the printed graphene films remains a big challenge. Here, we develop a "weak oxidation–vigorous exfoliation" strategy to tailor graphene oxide (GO) for meeting all the requirements of highly conductive inkjet-printed graphene films, including a more intact carbon plane and suitable size. The π-conjugated structure of the resulting graphene has been restored to a high degree, and its printed films show an ultrahigh conductivity of ~420 S·cm–1, which is tens of times higher than previously reported results, suggesting that, aside from developing a highly efficient reduction method, tuning the GO structure could be an alternative way to produce high quality graphene sheets. Using inkjet-printed graphene patterns as source/drain/gate electrodes, and semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as channels, we fabricated an all-carbon field effect transistor which shows excellent performance (an on/off ratio of ~104 and a mobility of ~8 cm2·V–1·s–1) compared to previously reported CNT-based transistors, promising the use of nanocarbon materials, graphene and SWCNTs in printed electronics, especially where high performance and flexibility are needed.

Keywords: field effect transistor, inkjet printing, graphene oxide, high conductivity

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 14 June 2013
Revised: 07 August 2013
Accepted: 12 August 2013
Published: 04 September 2013
Issue date: November 2013

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mr. Wenshan Li for synthesis of s-SWCNTs and Mr. Wei Shen for the structure model. This work was supported by the National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (No. 2012AA030303), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KGZD-EW-303-3), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51221264) and the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Program of Innovation of Sciences and Technology for Graduate Students).

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