Growth of reduced graphene oxide

Abstract

Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has the advantage of an aqueous and industrial-scalable production route. However, one of the main limitations that prevent the use of RGO in electronics is the high electrical resistance deviation between fabricated chips. In this article, we present the novel growth of RGO which can bridge the gaps in-between existing flakes and thus reduce the electrical resistance standard deviation from 80.5 % to 16.5 %. The average resistivity of the treated RGO of ∼ 3.8 nm thickness was 200 Ω/square. The study uses an atmospheric-pressure chemical vapour deposition (CVD) system with hydrogen and argon gas bubbling through ethanol before entering the furnace. With a treatment of 2 hours, 100 % of the silicon dioxide substrate was covered with RGO from an initial 65 % coverage. This technology could enable large-scale application of RGO use in practical electronic devices.