Identification of Semiconductive Patches in Thermally Processed Monolayer Oxo‐Functionalized Graphene

The thermal decomposition of graphene oxide (GO) is a complex process at the atomic level and not fully understood. Here, a subclass of GO, oxo‐functionalized graphene (oxo‐G), was used to study its thermal disproportionation. We present the impact of annealing on the electronic properties of a mono...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2020-08, Vol.59 (32), p.13657-13662
Main Authors: Wang, Zhenping, Yao, Qirong, Neumann, Christof, Börrnert, Felix, Renner, Julian, Kaiser, Ute, Turchanin, Andrey, Zandvliet, Harold J. W., Eigler, Siegfried
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical composition
Communication
Communications
Diameters
Disproportionation
electrical transport properties
Electronics industry
Graphene
graphene oxide
microscopy
Monolayers
oxo-functionalized graphene
Patches (structures)
Properties (attributes)
semiconductors
Thermal decomposition
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Summary:The thermal decomposition of graphene oxide (GO) is a complex process at the atomic level and not fully understood. Here, a subclass of GO, oxo‐functionalized graphene (oxo‐G), was used to study its thermal disproportionation. We present the impact of annealing on the electronic properties of a monolayer oxo‐G flake and correlated the chemical composition and topography corrugation by two‐probe transport measurements, XPS, TEM, FTIR and STM. Surprisingly, we found that oxo‐G, processed at 300 °C, displays C−C sp3‐patches and possibly C−O−C bonds, next to graphene domains and holes. It is striking that those C−O−C/C−C sp3‐separated sp2‐patches a few nanometers in diameter possess semiconducting properties with a band gap of about 0.4 eV. We propose that sp3‐patches confine conjugated sp2‐C atoms, which leads to the local semiconductor properties. Accordingly, graphene with sp3‐C in double layer areas is a potential class of semiconductors and a potential target for future chemical modifications. Localized semiconductive areas are generated by thermal annealing of oxo‐functionalized graphene, by the formation of sp3‐patches isolating sp2‐graphene‐like structures. The semiconductive patches display a band gap of 0.4 eV. The discovery of the structural and electronic insights paves the way to novel semiconductors.
ISSN:1433-7851
1521-3773
DOI:10.1002/anie.202004005