Vol:.(1234567890) Electronic Materials Letters (2018) 14:488–498 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13391-018-0046-x 1 3 The Efect of Low Energy Nitrogen Ion Implantation on Graphene Nanosheets Mukesh Mishra 1  · Subbiah Alwarappan 2  · Dinakar Kanjilal 3  · Tanuja Mohanty 1 Received: 19 September 2017 / Accepted: 28 January 2018 / Published online: 3 March 2018 © The Korean Institute of Metals and Materials 2018 Abstract Herein, we report the efect 50 keV nitrogen ion implantation at varying fuence on the optical properties of graphene nanosheets (number of layers < 5). Initially, graphene nanosheets synthesized by the direct liquid exfoliation of graphite layers were deposited on a cleaned Si-substrate by drop cast method. These graphene nanosheets are implanted with 50 keV nitrogen-ion beam at six diferent fuences. Raman spectroscopic results show that the D, D′ and G peak get broadened up to the nitrogen ion fuence of 1 × 10 15  ions/cm 2 , while 2D peak of graphene nanosheets disappeared for nitrogen-ions have fuence more than 10 14  ions/cm 2 . However, further increase of fuence causes the indistinguishable superimposition of D, D′ and G peaks. Surface contact potential value analysis for ion implanted graphene nanosheets shows the increase in defect concentration from 1.15 × 10 12 to 1.98 × 10 14  defects/cm 2 with increasing the nitrogen ion fuence, which resembles the Fermi level shift towards conduction band. XRD spectra confrmed that the crystallinity of graphene nanosheets was found to tamper with increasing fuence. These results revealed that the limit of nitrogen ion implantation resistant on the vibra- tional behaviors for graphene nanosheets was 10 15  ions/cm 2 that opens up the scope of application of graphene nanosheets in device fabrication for ion-active environment and space applications. Graphical Abstract Keywords Graphene nanosheets · Low energy ion implantation · Fluence · Defect concentration Extended author information available on the last page of the article