Highly Conductive Reduced Graphene Oxide Films for High Performance Electronic Devices

石墨烯已被证明是一种真正独特的材料，是许多物理参数的记录保持者。石墨烯作为一种高导电性和透明的材料，有望创造出一种新型的电子设备，其特点是优异的耐用性和弯曲自由。然而，尽管最近在扩大大面积石墨烯片的制造方面取得了重大进展，但制造方法仍然需要大量的努力和复杂的多阶段处理材料。为此，该奖项的目标是用微米级还原氧化石墨烯片制造高导电性石墨烯基薄膜，氧化石墨烯可以从天然石墨中获得。本项目的制造方法是环保的，不涉及有毒的有机溶剂，并利用传统的工业设备。这种方法具有巨大的潜力，可以迅速发展到工业规模，从而提高美国制造业的竞争力，创造就业机会。在这项工作中，将作出重大努力，增加希望攻读科学和工程高级学位的学生，特别是人数不足的少数民族和妇女的人数。学生将从这个项目的跨学科性质和实践方法中受益匪浅。这项工作的最终目标是设计和理解一种强大的、可扩展的纳米制造方法，用于制造高导电性、高柔韧性和透明的还原氧化石墨烯（rGO）基纳米层或薄膜，该方法通过易于浸渍的涂层工艺辅助聚合物吸附层。该方法基于将单个氧化石墨烯（GO）片包裹在几纳米厚的聚合物层中，允许通过可扩展的传统浸渍涂层近乎完美地形成氧化石墨烯单层。浸渍后，通过吸附在氧化石墨烯/ RMS（反应性大分子超涂覆剂）单层上沉积聚合物中间层。聚合物中间层用于促进第二氧化石墨烯单层（通过浸涂）的形成，并在氧化石墨烯还原过程中提供连接底层和上层氧化石墨烯单层的碳原子。这项工作直接解决了rgo基导电透明柔性薄膜大规模纳米制造的一些重大挑战。具体而言，该研究制造方法将允许在非导电衬底上直接和可重复地制造致密的氧化石墨烯单层，以单层精度控制氧化石墨烯层的厚度，并实现制造层的高相干性和鲁棒性。在性能方面，该项目的目标是在不导电的氧化物表面上制造高导电性（低片阻）和透明（可见区低吸光度）的rgo基纳米薄膜。

Graphene has proven to be a truly unique material and the record holder for a number of physical parameters. It is expected that employment of graphene as a highly conductive and transparent material would create a new class of electronic devices characterized by excellent durability and flexural freedom. However, despite recent significant progress in scaling up fabrication of large area graphene sheets the fabrication methods still require significant effort and sophisticated multistage handling of the material. To this end, this award targets the manufacture of highly conductive graphene-based films from micron-scale sheets of reduced-graphene oxide, which can be obtained from naturally occurring graphite. The manufacturing method in this project is environmentally friendly, does not involve toxic organic solvents, and utilizes conventional industrial equipment. The approach has a significant potential to rapidly grow to industrial scale and, therefore, increase the competitiveness of US based-manufacturing and create employment opportunities. In course of the work significant effort will be directed to increase the numbers of students, especially underrepresented minorities and women, who wish to pursue advanced degrees in science and engineering. Students will benefit greatly from this project's interdisciplinary nature and hands-on approach.The ultimate goal of this work is the design and understanding of a robust and scalable nanomanufacturing method for the fabrication of highly conductive, highly flexible, and transparent reduced graphene oxide (rGO) based nano-scale layers or films via a facile dip-coating process assisted with polymer adsorbed layers. The method is based on enveloping individual graphene oxide (GO) sheets in few nm thick polymer layers allowing for near-perfect formation of the GO monolayer by scalable conventional dip-coating. After the dip-coating a polymer interlayer is deposited on the GO/ RMS (reactive macromolecular super-spreader) monolayer by adsorption. The polymer interlayer is employed to promote formation of the second GO monolayer (by dip-coating) and provide carbon atoms to connect the bottom and upper rGO monolayers during the GO reduction. This work directly addresses a number of the grand challenges for the large-scale nanomanufacturing of rGO-based conductive transparent flexible films. Specifically, it is expected that the research manufacturing method will allow the straightforward and reproducible fabrication of tight GO monolayers on non-conductive substrates, control of the thickness of the rGO layer with single layer precision, and achieve high coherency and robustness of the fabricated layer. In terms of properties, the project targets the manufacture of highly conductive (low sheet resistance) and transparent (low absorbance in visible region) rGO-based nanoscale films on non-conductive oxide surfaces.