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和许多物理参数的记录保持器。 预期石墨烯作为高导电性和透明材料的使用将产生以优异的耐久性和弯曲自由度为特征的新型电子器件。 然而，尽管最近在按比例放大制造大面积石墨烯片方面取得了显著进展，但制造方法仍然需要大量的工作和材料的复杂的多级处理。为此，该奖项的目标是从还原氧化石墨烯的微米级薄片制造高导电性石墨烯薄膜，这种氧化石墨烯可以从天然存在的石墨中获得。 本项目的制造方法环保，不涉及有毒有机溶剂，使用常规工业设备。 这种方法具有快速发展到工业规模的巨大潜力，因此，可以提高美国制造业的竞争力并创造就业机会。在工作过程中，将作出重大努力，增加希望攻读科学和工程学高级学位的学生人数，特别是代表性不足的少数民族和妇女。 学生将从这个项目的跨学科性质和动手的方法大大受益。这项工作的最终目标是设计和理解一个强大的和可扩展的纳米制造方法，用于制造高导电性，高柔性和透明的还原氧化石墨烯（rGO）为基础的纳米级层或薄膜，通过一个简单的浸涂过程与聚合物吸附层辅助。 该方法基于将单个氧化石墨烯（GO）片包封在几nm厚的聚合物层中，从而允许通过可缩放的常规浸涂来近乎完美地形成GO单层。在浸涂之后，通过吸附将聚合物中间层沉积在GO/ RMS（反应性大分子超铺展剂）单层上。 聚合物中间层用于促进第二GO单层的形成（通过浸涂）并提供碳原子以在GO还原期间连接底部和上部rGO单层。 这项工作直接解决了rGO基导电透明柔性膜的大规模纳米制造的一些重大挑战。 具体而言，预期研究制造方法将允许在非导电衬底上直接且可再现地制造紧密GO单层，以单层精度控制rGO层的厚度，并实现所制造层的高相干性和稳健性。 在性能方面，该项目的目标是在非导电氧化物表面上制造高导电（低薄层电阻）和透明（可见光区低吸光度）的rGO纳米级薄膜。

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.