Graphene: a new liquid crystal for high performance electro-optic applications

Abstract

Graphene, a monoatomically thick film made by carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb lattice, for its exceptional electrical, thermal and mechanical properties is one of the most attractive materials to be incorporated in electronic devices and in composites. New interest has been recently arisen from water suspensions of flakes of graphene oxide (GO), obtained from chemical exfoliation of graphite, since they form liquid crystal (LC) phases, for the easiness of handling graphene, otherwise forming aggregates, and their high yield. Interestingly, GO LC suspensions are responsive to electric fields with an extremely high Kerr coefficient resulting in an induced birefringence at macroscopic scale, achieved with very low electric fields. The LC phase formation and its responsiveness to electric fields are dependent on suspension characteristics such as flake average dimension, aqueous matrix and flake properties. In particular, bare graphene flakes have larger response to electric fields, due to their higher polarizability, than GO flakes. As it will be described, this results in improved electro-optic performance of reduced-graphene compared to GO LC with remarkably higher optical transmission for the same field strength thanks to a more efficient flake reorientation enabling a larger optical modulation.