Laser-induced porous graphene films from commercial polymers.

Lin, Jian; Peng, Zhiwei; Liu, Yuanyue; Ruiz-Zepeda, Francisco; Ye, Ruquan; Samuel, Errol L G; Yacaman, Miguel Jose; Yakobson, Boris I et al. · Nat Commun · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The cost effective synthesis and patterning of carbon nanomaterials is a challenge in electronic and energy storage devices. Here we report a one-step, scalable approach for producing and patterning porous graphene films with three-dimensional networks from commercial polymer films using a CO<sub>2</sub> infrared laser. The sp<sup>3</sup>-carbon atoms are photothermally converted to sp<sup>2</sup>-carbon atoms by pulsed laser irradiation. The resulting laser-induced graphene (LIG) exhibits high electrical conductivity. The LIG can be readily patterned to interdigitated electrodes for in-plane microsupercapacitors with specific capacitances of >4 mF cm<sup>-2</sup> and power densities of ~9 mW cm<sup>-2</sup>. Theoretical calculations partially suggest that enhanced capacitance may result from LIG's unusual ultra-polycrystalline lattice of pentagon-heptagon structures. Combined with the advantage of one-step processing of LIG in air from commercial polymer sheets, which would allow the employment of a roll-to-roll manufacturing process, this technique provides a rapid route to polymer-written electronic and energy storage devices.