| Aug 26, 2012 |
Laser-assisted synthesis of graphene in low-temperature liquid media
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(Nanowerk News) Researchers from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, in a collaborative work with their colleagues from Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin have recently managed to produce graphene by laser ablation in cold liquid media (see paper in Laser Physics Letters: "Fabrication of graphene based on Q-switched Nd:YAG laser ablation of graphite target in liquid nitrogen").
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Their proposed approach offers a better control over the type and quality of the resulting products as the involved laser processing is handled in a more facile manner.
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The research addresses the fabrication of graphene by the utilization of neodymium:YAG laser in a liquid nitrogen medium. This simple scheme affords pure graphene without requiring any vacuum equipment, high temperature furnaces or long processing periods, all of which are costly. The proposed synthesis method is single-staged, fast, controllable and high-yielding in comparison with the conventional previous methods. To put it in a few words, the technique is based on the Nd:YAG laser shooting a graphite target inside a liquid medium at extremely low temperatures.
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The mentioned cold medium can be liquid nitrogen, argon or helium thanks to which, laser irradiation parameters such as energy of the laser, pulsation repetition, pulse width, wavelength of the beam, etc. can conveniently be controlled.
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This technique has been patented provisionally with the USPTO under the number of 61640094.
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