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Nano Research 2014, 7(5): 743-754 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-014-0435-x
Research Article | Issue | Published: 26 April 2014

Large-area nanopatterned graphene for ultrasensitive gas sensing

Show Author's Information Alberto Cagliani( ),  David Micheal Angus Mackenzie,  Lisa Katharina Tschammer,  Filippo Pizzocchero,  Kristoffer Almdal,  Peter Bøggild( )
DTU Nanotech-Center for Nanostructured Graphene (CNG) and Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology Technical University of Denmark, Building 345 Ørsteds Plads, 2800 Kgs.Lyngby Denmark
Keywords:
graphene, defects, gas sensor, nanopatterning, nitrogen dioxide
Cite this article:
Cagliani A, Mackenzie DMA, Tschammer LK, et al. Large-area nanopatterned graphene for ultrasensitive gas sensing. Nano Research, 2014, 7(5): 743-754. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-014-0435-x
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Chemical vapor deposited (CVD) graphene is nanopatterned using a spherical block copolymer etch mask. The use of spherical rather than cylindrical block copolymers allows homogeneous patterning of cm-scale areas without any substrate surface treatment. Raman spectroscopy was used to study the controlled generation of point defects in the graphene lattice with increasing etching time, confirming that alongside the nanomesh patterning, the nanopatterned CVD graphene presents a high defect density between the mesh holes. The nanopatterned samples showed sensitivities for NO2 of more than one order of magnitude higher than for non-patterned graphene. NO2 concentrations as low as 300 ppt were detected with an ultimate detection limit of tens of ppt. This is the smallest value reported so far for non-UV illuminated graphene chemiresistive NO2 gas sensors. The dramatic improvement in the gas sensitivity is believed to be due to the high adsorption site density, thanks to the combination of edge sites and point defect sites. This work opens the possibility of large area fabrication of nanopatterned graphene with extremely high densities of adsorption sites for sensing applications.


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About this article

Large-area nanopatterned graphene for ultrasensitive gas sensing

Show Author's information Alberto Cagliani( ), David Micheal Angus Mackenzie, Lisa Katharina Tschammer, Filippo Pizzocchero, Kristoffer Almdal, Peter Bøggild( )
DTU Nanotech-Center for Nanostructured Graphene (CNG) and Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology Technical University of Denmark, Building 345 Ørsteds Plads, 2800 Kgs.Lyngby Denmark

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposited (CVD) graphene is nanopatterned using a spherical block copolymer etch mask. The use of spherical rather than cylindrical block copolymers allows homogeneous patterning of cm-scale areas without any substrate surface treatment. Raman spectroscopy was used to study the controlled generation of point defects in the graphene lattice with increasing etching time, confirming that alongside the nanomesh patterning, the nanopatterned CVD graphene presents a high defect density between the mesh holes. The nanopatterned samples showed sensitivities for NO2 of more than one order of magnitude higher than for non-patterned graphene. NO2 concentrations as low as 300 ppt were detected with an ultimate detection limit of tens of ppt. This is the smallest value reported so far for non-UV illuminated graphene chemiresistive NO2 gas sensors. The dramatic improvement in the gas sensitivity is believed to be due to the high adsorption site density, thanks to the combination of edge sites and point defect sites. This work opens the possibility of large area fabrication of nanopatterned graphene with extremely high densities of adsorption sites for sensing applications.

Keywords: graphene, defects, gas sensor, nanopatterning, nitrogen dioxide

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 04 December 2013
Revised: 20 February 2014
Accepted: 27 February 2014
Published: 26 April 2014
Issue date: May 2014

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Center for Nanostructured Graphene and the European Project NMP-FP7 Grafol for financial support. The Center for Nanostructured Graphene (CNG) is sponsored by the Danish National Research Foundation, Project DNRF58. The authors would like to thank Dr. Tim J. Booth for the fruitful discussion and DTU-Danchip personnel for help during the microfabrication.

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