Structure and electron field emission properties of ion beam reduced graphene oxide sheets

We report the structure and electron field emission properties of ion beam reduced graphene oxide (GO). 500 keV Ar+ ion beam was used to reduce the GO, synthesized by modified Hummer's method. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Resonant Rutherford backscattering spectrometric analyses evidenced that the oxygen functional groups drastically reduced upon irradiation. Further, the ion beam reduced GO exhibits enhanced electron field emission property. The exponential reduction of oxygen concentration is correlated with the field enhancement factor. Raman studies shows that ion irradiation process does not introduced any additional defects in GO. Scanning electron microscopic analysis reveals layered structure of GO sheets upon ion irradiation. Our investigation demonstrated that ion beam irradiation of GO yields a highly enhanced field emission with low turn-on voltage without deteriorating its structure.

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