Porous reduced graphene oxide membrane with enhanced gauge factor

Abstract

This paper shows that a porous structure for a reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membrane effectively enhances its gauge factor. A porous graphene-based membrane was synthesized in a liquid phase by combining a GO sheet with copper hydroxide nanostrands (CHNs). A chemical reduction treatment using L-ascorbic acid was utilized to simultaneously improve the conductivity of GO and remove the CHNs from each GO sheet. The intrinsic gauge factors of the porous rGO membrane with varying applied tensile strains were obtained and found to increase monotonically with the increased porosity of the rGO membrane. For a membrane porosity of 15.78%, the maximum gauge factor is 46.1 under an applied strain of less than 1%. The main mechanism behind the enhanced gauge factor is attributed to the structure of the porous rGO membrane. The relationships between the initial electrical resistance, tunneling distance, and gauge factor of the rGO membrane were found by adjusting the membrane porosity and the results completely confirmed the physical phenomena.