Changes in Physical Properties of Graphene Oxide with Thermal Reduction

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has attracted significant attention as an easily fabricable two dimensional material. Depending on the oxygen-containing functional groups (OFGs) in an rGO specimen, the optical and electrical properties can vary significantly, directly affecting the performance of devices in which rGO is implemented. Here, we investigated the optical and electrical properties of GO treated with various annealing (reduction) temperatures from 350 to 950 ℃ in H2 ambient. Using diverse characteristic tools, we found that the transmittance, nanoscale domain size, OFGs in GO and rGO, and Schottky barrier height (SBH) measured on n-type GaN are significantly influenced by the annealing temperature. The relative intensity of the defect-induced band in Raman spectroscopy showed a minimum at the annealing temperature of approximately 350 ℃, before the OFGs in rGO showed vigorous changes in relative content. When the domain size of rGO reached a minimum at the annealing temperature of 650 ℃, the SBH of rGO/GaN showed the maximum value of 1.07 eV.