Thermal treatment of fluorinated graphene: An in situ Raman spectroscopy study

Fluorinated graphene is a promising material for electronic applications, and its thermal properties are of high importance. Here, the resilience of fluorinated graphene to a range of temperatures is presented. The heating/cooling cycles were carried out on fluorinated monolayer, fluorinated bilayer graphene and non-fluorinated graphene as well, for comparison. In order to follow the changes of the properties of the material, in situ Raman spectra were acquired at different temperature steps. The results show that most of fluorine bonded to graphene can be removed at unusually mild temperatures, but not completely, as some fluorine can still be traced even upon heating at 800 K. Additionally, despite monolayer graphene has a higher level of fluorination than bilayer graphene, after the first heating/cooling cycle a similar amount of fluorine is found on both fluorinated graphene samples.