Abstract
Graphite has been widely used by humans for a large part of their history. Nevertheless, it has only recently been possible to isolate its basic unit: carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure on a single plane, namely graphene. Since its discovery, many techniques have been developed and improved to properly synthesize graphene and its derivatives which are part of the novel class of two-dimensional materials. These advanced materials have imposed themselves in nanotechnology thanks to some outstanding physical properties due to their reduced dimensions. In the case of graphene, its reduced dimension gives rise to a high electrical mobility, a large thermal conductivity, a high mechanical resistance, and a large optical transparency. Therefore, such aspect is of great scientific interest for both basic and applied research, ranging from theoretical physics to surface chemistry and applied solid state physics. The connection between all these fields is guaranteed by spectroscopy and especially by Raman spectroscopy which provides a lot of information about structural and electronic features of graphene. In this review, the authors present a systematized collection of the most important physical insights on the fundamental electronic and vibrational properties of graphene, their connection with basic optical and Raman spectroscopy, and a brief overview of main synthesis methods.
Highlights
First observed in 2004 [1], graphene has rapidly established a key role in the branch of material science which concerns the investigation of nanomaterials [2]
The connection between all these fields is guaranteed by spectroscopy and especially by Raman spectroscopy which provides a lot of information about structural and electronic features of graphene
The methods developed until now can be grouped in two categories depending on the direction of the manufacturing process: bottom up methods, which start from molecular precursor in that assembled together to build up objects of higher hierarchical level, and top down methods, in which macroscopic materials are reduced to the nano-size element of which are constituted or used as raw material, as in the case of graphite and waste plastic for graphene, respectively [18,24,25]
Summary
First observed in 2004 [1], graphene has rapidly established a key role in the branch of material science which concerns the investigation of nanomaterials [2]. Even if the nomenclature of nano-size world is not yet well defined, nanomaterials are those materials in which at least one external or internal dimension is on the scale of nanometer [15,16] In addition to this fundamental property, nanomaterials are classified according to various factors: constituent elements, characteristic dimensionality, and elementary or composite structure [15,16,17]. An entire section is dedicated to the application of Raman spectroscopy in the investigation of several structural and electronic features of graphene. The present review starts from a discussion of the basic chemical properties of carbon which determine various carbon-based nanomaterials, as well as their different structural features (Section 2). The review is completed by a brief discussion of the most common methods of synthesis currently used (Section 7)
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