Study of conduction mechanism in swift heavy ion irradiated reduced graphene oxide samples and its applications towards low level detection of SO2 at room temperature

Abstract

The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sample is synthesized by the reduction of hydrazine hydrate. The prepared samples further reduced with swift heavy ion irradiation beam of silver (Ag8+) ions of 100 MeV energies. Ion beam irradiation causes defect in the rGO samples which is explained on the basis of Raman study. The removal of oxygen functional groups are explained on the basis of FTIR study. Ion irradiation has increased dc electrical conductivity on reduction. The room temperature dc conductivity of sample S4 is increases from 2.5 × 10−2 to 1.94 S/cm during reduction. The conduction mechanism is accounted by Mott's formulation of 3D variable range hopping model in the temperature range of 77 to 400 K. Along with it, the prepared samples are also tested for gas sensing abilities towards SO2 gas at 5 ppm. The sample exhibits good sensing properties towards analytes at room temperature.