Direct Printing and Patterning of Highly Uniform Graphene Nanosheets for Applications in Flexible Electronics

With the steady increase in the demand for flexible devices, mainly in display panels, researchers have focused on finding a novel material that have excellent electrical properties even when it is bended or stretched, along with superior mechanical and thermal properties. Graphene, a single-layered two-dimensional carbon lattice, has recently attracted tremendous research interest in this respect. However, the limitations in the growing method of graphene, mainly chemical vapor deposition on transition metal catalysts, has posed severe problems in terms of device integration, due to the laborious transfer process that may damage and contaminate the graphene layer. In addition, to lower the overall cost, a fabrication technique that supports low temperature and low vacuum is required, which is the main reason why solution-based process for graphene layer deposition has become the hot issue. Nonetheless, a direct deposition method of large area, few-layered, and uniform graphene layers has not been reported yet, along with a convenient method of patterning them. Here, we report an evaporation-induced technique for directly depositing few layers of graphene nanosheets with excellent uniformity and thickness controllability on any substrate. The printed graphene nanosheets can be patterned into desired shapes and structures, which can be directly applicable as flexible and transparent electrode. To illustrate such potential, the transport properties and resistivity of the deposited graphene layers have been investigated according to their thickness. The induced internal flow of the graphene solution during tis evaporation allows uniform deposition with which its thickness, and thus resistivity can be tuned by controlling the composition ratio of the solute and solvent.