Reduction Kinetics of Thermally Reduced Graphene Oxide Thin Films

Abstract

We report an experimentalstudy of thermal reduction of graphene oxide (GO) under nitrogen flow.Ultrathin films of GO were prepared on quartz glass substrates by spin-coatingfrom 3 mg/ml aqueous solutions of GO. These films were annealed at 50 °C under vacuum overnight before thermal reduction.The films were exposed to temperatures of 100 °C, 150 °C, 200 °C, 300 °C, 400 °C, 500 °C and 800 °C under nitrogen flowing. We used UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy tomonitor the change of absorption spectra caused by thermal reduction. We observed a significant change ofabsorption spectra due to formation of reduced graphene oxide (RGO). We found that thermal reduction startedalready at 100 °C, but proceeded significantly faster at heating temperatures higherthan 200 °C.