• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.506-512
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• 2019

Although graphene has been successfully grown in large scale via chemical vapor deposition (CVD), it is still questionable whether the mechanical properties of CVD graphene are equivalent to those of exfoliated graphene. In addition, there has been an issue regarding how the tilt angle of the grain boundary (GB) affects the strength of graphene. We investigate the mechanical properties of CVD graphene with nanoindentation from atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Surprisingly, the samples with GB angles of 10° and 26° yielded similar fracture stresses of ~ 80 and ~ 79 GPa, respectively. Even for samples with GB exhibiting a wider range, from 0° to 30°, only a slightly wider fracture stress range (~ 50 to ~ 90 GPa) was measured, regardless of tilt angle. The results are contrary to previous studies that have reported that GBs with a larger tilt angle yield stronger graphene film. Such a lack of angle dependence of GB can be attributed to irregular and well-stitched GB structures.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.90.2-90.2
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• 2012

Graphene has recently attracted significant attention because of its unique optical and electrical properties. For practical device applications, special attention has to be paid to the synthesis of high-quality graphene on large-area substrates. Graphene has been synthesized by eloborated mechanical exfoliation of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, chemical reduction of exfoliated grahene oxide, thermal decomposition of silicon carbide, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on Ni or Cu substrates. Among these techniques, CVD is superior to the others from the perspective of technological applications because of its possibility to produce a large size graphene. PECVD has been demonstrated to be successful in synthesizing various carbon nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes and nanosheets. Compared with thermal CVD, PECVD possesses a unique advantage of additional high-density reactive gas atoms and radicals, facilitating low-temperature, rapid, and controllable synthesis. In the current study, we report results in synthesizing of high-quality graphene films on a Ni films at low temperature. Controllable synthesis of quality graphene on Cu foil through inductively-coupled plasma CVD (ICPCVD), in which the surface chemistry is significantly different from that of conventional thermal CVD, was also discussed.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.16.2-16.2
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• 2011

Graphene has attracted significant attention due to its unique characteristics and promising nanoelectronic device applications. For practical device applications, it is essential to synthesize high-quality and large-area graphene films. Graphene has been synthesized by eloborated mechanical exfoliation of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, chemical reduction of exfoliated grahene oxide, thermal decomposition of silicon carbide, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on metal substrates such as Ni, Cu, Ru etc. The CVD has advantages over some of other methods in terms of mass production on large-areas substrates and it can be easily separated from the metal substrate and transferred to other desired substrates. Especially, plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) can be very efficient to synthesize high-quality graphene. Little information is available on the synthesis of graphene by PECVD even though PECVD has been demonstrated to be successful in synthesizing various carbon nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes and nanosheets. In this study, we synthesized graphene on $Ni/SiO_2/Si$ and Cu plate substrates with CH4 diluted in $Ar/H_2$ (10%) by using an inductively-coupled PECVD (ICPCVD). High-quality graphene was synthesized at as low as $700^{\circ}C$ with 600 W of plasma power while graphene layer was not formed without plasma. The growth rate of graphene was so fast that graphene films fully covered on substrate surface just for few seconds $CH_4$ gas supply. The transferred graphene films on glass substrates has a transmittance at 550 nm is higher 94%, indicating 1~3 monolayers of graphene were formed. FETs based on the grapheme films transferred to $Si/SiO_2$ substrates revealed a p-type. We will further discuss the synthesis of graphene and doped graphene by ICPVCD and their characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.490-490
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• 2011

Graphene, hexagonal network of carbon atoms forming a one-atom thick planar sheet, has been emerged as a fascinating material for future nanoelectronics. Huge attention has been captured by its extraordinary electronic properties, such as bipolar conductance, half integer quantum Hall effect at room temperature, ballistic transport over ${\sim}0.4{\mu}m$ length and extremely high carrier mobility at room temperature. Several approaches have been developed to produce graphene, such as micromechanical cleavage of highly ordered pyrolytic graphite using adhesive tape, chemical reduction of exfoliated graphite oxide, epitaxial growth of graphene on SiC and single crystalline metal substrate, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis. In particular, direct synthesis of graphene using metal catalytic substrate in CVD process provides a new way to large-scale production of graphene film for realization of graphene-based electronics. In this method, metal catalytic substrates including Ni and Cu have been used for CVD synthesis of graphene. There are two proposed mechanism of graphene synthesis: carbon diffusion and precipitation for graphene synthesized on Ni, and surface adsorption for graphene synthesized on Cu, namely, self-limiting growth mechanism, which can be divided by difference of carbon solubility of the metals. Here we present that large area, uniform, and layer controllable graphene synthesized on Cu catalytic substrate is achieved by acetylene-assisted CVD. The number of graphene layer can be simply controlled by adjusting acetylene injection time, verified by Raman spectroscopy. Structural features and full details of mechanism for the growth of layer controllable graphene on Cu were systematically explored by transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and secondary ion mass spectroscopy.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.49-52
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• 2015

The change of the chemical structure of graphene oxide (GO) was investigated by periodical sampling of GO during exfoliation by using a sonicator. A significant amount of GO was exfoliated during up to 10 hr of sonication. Raman and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed a continuous increase of the G/D or C=C/C=O peak ratio of GO, as the sonication time increases. The photoluminescence (PL) intensity of each GO sample also decreased as a function of the sonication time. PL excitation spectra with three major peaks indicate that the sizes of $sp^2$ carbon clusters were enlarged by longer sonication. In addition, new excitation at around 300 nm proves the existence of newly developed small clusters of $sp^2$ carbons as the sonication time increased.

• Carbon letters
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.50-56
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• 2014

We prepared ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH)/graphene oxide (GO) membranes by solution casting method. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that GOs were fully exfoliated in the EVOH/GO membrane. The glass transition temperatures of EVOH were increased by adding GOs into EVOH. The melting temperatures of EVOH/GO composites were decreased by adding GOs into EVOH, indicating that GOs may inhibit the crystallization of EVOH during non-isothermal crystallization. However, the equilibrium melting temperatures of EVOH were not changed by adding GOs into EVOH. The oxygen permeability of the EVOH/GO (0.3 wt%) film was reduced to 63% of that of pure EVOH film, with 84% light transmittance at 550 nm. The EVOH/GO membranes exhibited 100 times better (water vapor)/(oxygen) selectivity performance than pure EVOH membrane.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.277-277
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• 2013

The epitaxial graphene on the 4H- or 6H-SiC(0001) surface has been intensively studied due to the possibility of wafer-scale growt. However the existence of interface layer (zero layer graphene) and its influence on the upper graphene layer have been considered as one of the main obstarcles for the industrial application. Among various methods tried to overcome the strong interaction with the substrate through the interface layer, it has been proved that the hydrogen intercalation successfully passivate the Si dangling bond of the substrate and can produce the quasi-free standing epitaxial graphene (QFEG) layers on the siC(0001) surface. In this study, we report the results of the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and Raman spectroscopy for the QFEG layers produced by ex-situ and in-situ hydrogen intercalation.From the ARPES measurement, we confirmed that the Dirac points of QFEG layers exactly coincide with the Fermi level. The band structure of QFEG layer are sustainable upon thermal heating up to 1100 K and robust against the deposition of several metals andmolecular deposition. We also investigated the strain of the QFEG layers by using Raman spectroscopy measurement. From the change of the 2D peak position of graphene Raman spectrum, we found out that unlike the strong compressive strain in the normal epitaxial graphene on the SiC(0001) surface, the strain of the QFEG layer are significantly released and almost similar to that of the mechanically exfoliated graphene on the silicon oxide substrate. These results indicated that various ideas proposed for the ideal free-standing graphene can be tested based on the QFEG graphene layers grown on the SiC(0001) surface.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.255-262
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• 2017

In this study, systematic integration of graphene oxide (GO) into polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers was accomplished by electrospinning to examine their mechanical properties. Exfoliated GO was initially prepared by the modified Hummer's method, and the surface of the GO was modified with an organic surfactant (e.g., cetyltrimetylammonium chloride) to improve its stability and dispersity. The overall mechanical property of the nanofiber composite membranes was highly improved. Particularly, the composite membranes with the modified GO exhibited much improved mechanical property, presumably due to the increased stability and dispersity of GO during electrospinning.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.175.2-175.2
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• 2014

Graphene (G) has been modified with palladium, copper, and manganese oxide nanoparticles (NPs), and their catalytic applications have been studied in C-C coupling reactions and methylmercaptan (CH3SH) decomposition reactions. In this research, graphite oxide (GO) sheets were exfoliated and oxidized from graphite powder and impregnated with metal precursors including Pd2+, Cu2+, and Mn2+. The thermal treatments of the metal impregnated GO in preferred gas environments produced Pd NPs on graphene (Pd/G), PdO NPs on GO (PdO/GO), and CuOx and MnOx NPs on graphene (CuOx/MnOx/G). In case of Pd/G and PdO/GO, the TEM images show that, although the mean size of the Pd NPs changed significantly before and after the C-C coupling reaction, that of the PdO NPs didn't, implying that the PdO/GO was superior to Pd/G in terms of the recyclability. Also, we demonstrate that the CuOx/MnOx/G exerts the excellent catalytic efficiency in CH3SH decomposition reaction comparing with conventional catalysts. The chemical and electronic structural changes were investigated using XRD and XPS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.552-552
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• 2012

We fabricated reduced graphene oxide field-effect transistor (RGO-FET) on glass for highly sensitive temperature and IR detection. The device has the channels of RGO responsive to physical stimuli such as temperature and IR. The RGO sensing layers are fabricated from exfoliated graphene oxide sheets that are deposited to form a thin continuous network by electrostatic assembly. These graphene oxide networks are reduced toward reduce graphene oxide by exposure to a hydrazine hydrate vapor. To improve performance and eliminate interferences from oxygen and water vapor absorption to electrical properties of RGO-FET, the sensor devices were encapsulated by the tetratetracontane layer after annealing treatment. The device with encapsulation layer showed lower hysteresis, improved stability, and better repeatability. The temperature response of RGO-FET is examined by measuring changing the temperature, the device exhibited the high sensitivity and repeatability even with the temperature interval of 1 K. We also demonstrated that our devices have capability of IR sensing.