Synthesis of Ag-decorated, few-layer graphene structures over a novel Ag/MgO catalytic system by radio-frequency chemical vapor deposition

We report the synthesis, by radio-frequency chemical vapor deposition with methane as the carbon source, of multicomponent nanostructural materials based on Ag nanoparticles embedded into graphene layers and discuss their properties. We found that the Ag concentration plays an important role in controlling the morphology and the structure of the resulting graphene sheets. Raman analysis was used to calculate the in-plane crystallites (La) from the (IG/ID) ratio, which were found to range between 12.1 and 13.1 nm. Such composites could find applications in a number of areas ranging from energy harvesting and plasmonics to sensing and nanomedicine.

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► Multicomponent Ag–graphene composites were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition.
► Nanostructural Ag clusters were found to be decorated within the graphitic layer.
► Few-layer and wrinkled graphenes with smooth areas of dozens of nm are reported.
► In-plane crystallites (La) were found to range between 12.1 and 13.1 nm.