Laser-induced porous graphene films from commercial polymers

Jian Lin; Zhiwei Peng; Yuanyue Liu; Francisco Ruiz-Zepeda; Ruquan Ye; Errol L G Samuel; Miguel Jose Yacaman; Boris I Yakobson; James M Tour

doi:10.1038/ncomms6714

Laser-induced porous graphene films from commercial polymers

Nat Commun. 2014 Dec 10:5:5714. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6714.

Authors

Jian Lin¹, Zhiwei Peng², Yuanyue Liu³, Francisco Ruiz-Zepeda⁴, Ruquan Ye², Errol L G Samuel², Miguel Jose Yacaman⁴, Boris I Yakobson⁵, James M Tour⁵

Affiliations

¹ 1] Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA [2] Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
² Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
³ Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, Texas 78249, USA.
⁵ 1] Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA [2] Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA [3] Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.

Abstract

The cost effective synthesis and patterning of carbon nanomaterials is a challenge in electronic and energy storage devices. Here we report a one-step, scalable approach for producing and patterning porous graphene films with three-dimensional networks from commercial polymer films using a CO₂ infrared laser. The sp³-carbon atoms are photothermally converted to sp²-carbon atoms by pulsed laser irradiation. The resulting laser-induced graphene (LIG) exhibits high electrical conductivity. The LIG can be readily patterned to interdigitated electrodes for in-plane microsupercapacitors with specific capacitances of >4 mF cm^-2 and power densities of ~9 mW cm^-2. Theoretical calculations partially suggest that enhanced capacitance may result from LIG's unusual ultra-polycrystalline lattice of pentagon-heptagon structures. Combined with the advantage of one-step processing of LIG in air from commercial polymer sheets, which would allow the employment of a roll-to-roll manufacturing process, this technique provides a rapid route to polymer-written electronic and energy storage devices.

Abstract

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