M Santhosh Neelakandan, Filipič Gregor, Kovacevic Eva, Jagodar Andrea, Berndt Johannes, Strunskus Thomas, Kondo Hiroki, Hori Masaru, Tatarova Elena, Cvelbar Uroš
Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, Jamova cesta 39, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Nanomicro Lett. 2020 Feb 17;12(1):53. doi: 10.1007/s40820-020-0395-5.
Incorporating nitrogen (N) atom in graphene is considered a key technique for tuning its electrical properties. However, this is still a great challenge, and it is unclear how to build N-graphene with desired nitrogen configurations. There is a lack of experimental evidence to explain the influence and mechanism of structural defects for nitrogen incorporation into graphene compared to the derived DFT theories. Herein, this gap is bridged through a systematic study of different nitrogen-containing gaseous plasma post-treatments on graphene nanowalls (CNWs) to produce N-CNWs with incorporated and substituted nitrogen. The structural and morphological analyses describe a remarkable difference in the plasma-surface interaction, nitrogen concentration and nitrogen incorporation mechanism in CNWs by using different nitrogen-containing plasma. Electrical conductivity measurements revealed that the conductivity of the N-graphene is strongly influenced by the position and concentration of C-N bonding configurations. These findings open up a new pathway for the synthesis of N-graphene using plasma post-treatment to control the concentration and configuration of incorporated nitrogen for application-specific properties.
在石墨烯中引入氮（N）原子被认为是调节其电学性质的关键技术。然而，这仍然是一个巨大的挑战，并且尚不清楚如何构建具有所需氮构型的氮掺杂石墨烯。与已推导的密度泛函理论相比，缺乏实验证据来解释结构缺陷对氮掺入石墨烯的影响及机制。在此，通过对石墨烯纳米壁（CNWs）进行不同含氮气体等离子体后处理以制备具有掺入和取代氮的氮掺杂石墨烯纳米壁（N-CNWs）的系统研究，弥补了这一差距。结构和形态分析表明，使用不同的含氮等离子体时，等离子体与表面的相互作用、氮浓度以及氮掺杂石墨烯纳米壁中的氮掺入机制存在显著差异。电导率测量结果显示，氮掺杂石墨烯的电导率受C-N键构型的位置和浓度强烈影响。这些发现为利用等离子体后处理合成氮掺杂石墨烯开辟了一条新途径，可用于控制掺入氮的浓度和构型以实现特定应用性能。
