The extended growth of graphene oxide flakes using ethanol CVD

We report the extended growth of Graphene Oxide (GO) flakes using atmospheric pressure ethanol Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). GO was used to catalyze the deposition of carbon on a substrate in the ethanol CVD with Ar and H₂ as carrier gases. Raman, SEM, XPS and AFM characterized the growth to be a reduced GO (RGO) of <5 layers. This newly grown RGO possesses lower defect density with larger and increased distribution of sp² domains than chemically reduced RGO. Furthermore this method without optimization reduces the relative standard deviation of electrical conductivity between chips, from 80.5% to 16.5%, enabling RGO to be used in practical electronic devices. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013.