Fluorinated graphene suspension for inkjet printed technologies

Abstract

The possibility to control the size of the flakes of graphene suspension in the course of their fluorination in an aqueous hydrofluoric acid solution was demonstrated. The effect of the suspension composition, the fluorination time, temperature and thermal stress on the fragmentation process was investigated. The corrugation of suspension flakes, which occurs at fluorination due to a difference in the constants of graphene and fluorographene lattices, leads to the appearance of nonuniform mechanical stresses. The fact that the flake size after fragmentation is determined by the size of corrugation allows the assumption that the driving force of fragmentation is this mechanical stress. This assumption is confirmed by the break of the corrugated layers from flakes under thermal stress. Moreover, fluorination treatment at elevated temperatures (∼70 °C) significantly accelerates the fragmentation process. Suspensions of fluorinated graphene with nanometer size flakes are of interest for the development of 2D ink-jet printing technologies and production of thermally and chemically stable dielectric films for nanoelectronics. The printed fluorinated graphene films on silicon and flexible substrates have been demonstrated and the charges in metal–insulator–semiconductor structures have been estimated as the ultra low values of (0.5–2) × 1010 cm−2.