TY - JOUR
T1 - Three-dimensional patterning of solid microstructures through laser reduction of colloidal graphene oxide in liquid-crystalline dispersions
AU - Senyuk, Bohdan
AU - Behabtu, Natnael
AU - Martinez, Angel
AU - Lee, Taewoo
AU - Tsentalovich, Dmitri E.
AU - Ceriotti, Gabriel
AU - Tour, James M.
AU - Pasquali, Matteo
AU - Smalyukh, Ivan I.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank F. Mirri, Q. Liu, C. Twombly, R. Trivedi, P. Ackerman, B. Dan, A. Lee, F. Vitale and C. Young for useful discussions. We are grateful to B. Chen (Rice University Shared Equipment Authority) and F. Mirri for kind assistance with XPS measurements. We also thank A. Sanders for his help with SEM imaging and acknowledge the use of the Precision Imaging Facility at NIST, Boulder for the SEM characterization reported in this work. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under Award ER46921, contract DE-SC0010305 with the University of Colorado (B.S., A.M., T.L., I.I.S.), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research MURI Program, contract FA9550-12-1-0035 with the Rice University (J.M.T. and M.P.), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research FA9550-14-1-0111 (J.M.T.) and the Welch Foundation grant C-1668 (M.P.). B.S. also acknowledges support from the ICAM Branches Cost Sharing Fund and the Welch Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/5/21
Y1 - 2015/5/21
N2 - Graphene materials and structures have become an essential part of modern electronics and photovoltaics. However, despite many production methods, applications of graphene-based structures are hindered by high costs, lack of scalability and limitations in spatial patterning. Here we fabricate three-dimensional functional solid microstructures of reduced graphene oxide in a lyotropic nematic liquid crystal of graphene oxide flakes using a pulsed near-infrared laser. This reliable, scalable approach is mask-free, does not require special chemical reduction agents, and can be implemented at ambient conditions starting from aqueous graphene oxide flakes. Orientational ordering of graphene oxide flakes in self-assembled liquid-crystalline phases enables laser patterning of complex, three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide structures and colloidal particles, such as trefoil knots, with 'frozen' orientational order of flakes. These structures and particles are mechanically rigid and range from hundreds of nanometres to millimetres in size, as needed for applications in colloids, electronics, photonics and display technology.
AB - Graphene materials and structures have become an essential part of modern electronics and photovoltaics. However, despite many production methods, applications of graphene-based structures are hindered by high costs, lack of scalability and limitations in spatial patterning. Here we fabricate three-dimensional functional solid microstructures of reduced graphene oxide in a lyotropic nematic liquid crystal of graphene oxide flakes using a pulsed near-infrared laser. This reliable, scalable approach is mask-free, does not require special chemical reduction agents, and can be implemented at ambient conditions starting from aqueous graphene oxide flakes. Orientational ordering of graphene oxide flakes in self-assembled liquid-crystalline phases enables laser patterning of complex, three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide structures and colloidal particles, such as trefoil knots, with 'frozen' orientational order of flakes. These structures and particles are mechanically rigid and range from hundreds of nanometres to millimetres in size, as needed for applications in colloids, electronics, photonics and display technology.
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U2 - 10.1038/ncomms8157
DO - 10.1038/ncomms8157
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84930224981
VL - 6
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
M1 - 7157
ER -