Radiation effects of IR laser on graphene oxide irradiated in vacuum and in air

The radiation effects induced on a thin graphene oxide (GO) foil by a nanosecond Nd:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm were investigated by using different laser pulse intensities. The samples were irradiated in high vacuum and in air and were analyzed by means of different physical techniques, such as the 2.0 MeV alpha particles Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. The IR laser irradiation of graphene oxide in vacuum reduces the oxygen content at low and high fluences. The IR laser irradiation of GO in air enhances the oxygen content at fluences lower than 400 mJ/cm2: at these fluences thermal oxidation processes are present. At higher fluences, instead, the laser treatment reduces the oxygen amount due mainly to the ablation process of the surface layers. The laser ablation and peculiar graphene oxide properties were measured in order to highlight the presented obtained results.