Synthesis of blue light-emitting graphene quantum dots and their application in flexible nonvolatile memory

•Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) were synthesized from double walled carbon nanotubes.•The GQDs have uniform size distribution.•The fluorescent lifetime of GQDs is wavelength-dependent.•GQD–PMMA nanocomposite exhibits nonvolatile rewritable memory effect.•Flexible memory was realized based on the GQD-based nanocomposite.

We presented a facile method to prepare graphene quantum dots (GQDs) from double-walled carbon nanotube with blue light emission in a chlorobenzene solution, which enabled the preparation of GQD–polymer hybrid nanocomposite. The wavelength-dependent fluorescent lifetime of the GQDs was investigated by using time-resolved photoluminescence technique. Significantly, nonvolatile rewritable memory effect was observed for the GQD-based nanocomposite, suggesting the promising applications of GQDs in data storage. Moreover, due to the easy solution process, we demonstrated the design and realization of flexible GQD-based memory device. This work may expand the application of GQDs to the portable electronic devices.

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