Research Article
Physical Properties Investigation of Reduced Graphene Oxide
Thin Films Prepared by Material Inkjet Printing
Veronika Schmiedova,
1
Jan Pospisil,
1
Alexander Kovalenko,
1
Petr Ashcheulov,
2
Ladislav Fekete,
2
Tomas Cubon,
1
Peter Kotrusz,
3
Oldrich Zmeskal,
1
and Martin Weiter
1
1
Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Purkynova 118, 612 00 Brno, Czech Republic
2
Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences Czech Republic v. v. i., Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic
3
Danubia NanoTech, s.r.o., Ilkovicova 3, 841 04 Bratislava, Slovakia
Correspondence should be addressed to Veronika Schmiedova; xcschmiedova@fch.vut.cz
Received 23 March 2017; Revised 12 July 2017; Accepted 19 July 2017; Published 23 August 2017
Academic Editor: Zainovia Lockman
Copyright © 2017 Veronika Schmiedova et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Te article is focused on the study of the optical properties of inkjet-printed graphene oxide (GO) layers by spectroscopic
ellipsometry. Due to its unique optical and electrical properties, GO can be used as, for example, a transparent and fexible electrode
material in organic and printed electronics. Spectroscopic ellipsometry was used to characterize the optical response of the GO
layer and its reduced form (rGO, obtainable, for example, by reduction of prepared layers by either annealing, UV radiation, or
chemical reduction) in the visible range. Te thicknesses of the layers were determined by a mechanical proflometer and used as
an input parameter for optical modeling. Ellipsometric spectra were analyzed according to the dispersion model and the infuence
of the reduction of GO on optical constants is discussed. Tus, detailed analysis of the ellipsometric data provides a unique tool for
qualitative and also quantitative description of the optical properties of GO thin flms for electronic applications.
1. Introduction
Graphene is a two-dimensional (2D) carbon-based material
[1], which has recently attracted particular attention due to
its specifc electronic structure [2], which gives it unusual
electronic properties such as the anomalous quantum Hall
efect [3, 4] and startling high carrier mobility at relatively
high charge carrier concentrations [5]. Tis material was frst
isolated in 2003 [6] and immediately became a potential
candidate for electronic applications [7]. Recently, it was
shown [8] that graphene also provides extraordinary optical
properties. Graphene absorbs a 2.3% fraction of incident
white light, and due to this graphene provides unique elec-
tronic properties and structure [9, 10]. However, graphene
sheets have limited practical application due to the fact that
graphene is insoluble and infusible. Recent reports suggest
that solution-processable graphene oxides (GOs), resulting
from exfoliation of graphite powders with strong oxidizing
reagents [11, 12], can be deposited by wet processing with a
consequent reduction to a so-called reduced graphene oxide
(rGO).
Graphene oxide (GO) is an atomically thin carbon nanos-
tructure with various oxygen-containing functional moieties
such as carbonyl, carboxyl, and hydroxyl (Figure 1). GO and
rGO have attracted a great deal of attention due to their
remarkable physical, chemical, and mechanical properties
and could be used as a potential novel electronic material [13–
15].
Graphene oxide is potentially usable due to its sim-
ple synthesis and processing [12]. Te presence of oxygen
functional groups leads to dispersibility in water and other
organic solvents [16]. Tis remains a very important feature
for improving their properties of the material with polymer
matrixes such as electrical and mechanical characterization.
From previous studies in the literature [17], it is known that
in graphene one absorbed photon is capable of producing
many excited electrons (in traditional materials, energy from
one photon only excites one electron) and is therefore able
Hindawi
Journal of Nanomaterials
Volume 2017, Article ID 3501903, 8 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/3501903