Spectroscopic studies of the physical origin of environmental aging effects on doped graphene

The environmental aging effect of doped graphene is investigated as a function of the organic doping species, humidity, and the number of graphene layers adjacent to the dopant by studies of the Raman spectroscopy, x-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and electrical transport measurements. It is found that higher humidity and structural defects induce faster degradation in doped graphene. Detailed analysis of the spectroscopic data suggest that the physical origin of the aging effect is associated with the continuing reaction of H₂O molecules with the hygroscopic organic dopants, which leads to formation of excess chemical bonds, reduction in the doped graphene carrier density, and proliferation of damages from the graphene grain boundaries. These environmental aging effects are further shown to be significantly mitigated by added graphene layers.