Excimer laser reduction and patterning of graphite oxide

A successful approach and the operational parameters necessary for reduction of graphite oxide (GO) to multilayer graphene using 248 nm excimer laser irradiation in both vacuum and ultrahigh purity N2 background environments is described. The utility of excimer laser reduction is demonstrated by production of simple line and logo patterns using standard microscale lithographic patterning strategies. Multilayer graphene formation is confirmed with Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies, and the morphology of the processed GO sample is evaluated with scanning electron microscopy. Four-point probe measurements of the excimer laser reduced GO indicate typical sheet resistances of ∼100–500 Ω/sq, which is a significant improvement over other values reported in the literature for other laser-based GO reduction methods.