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Fabrication of vertical graphene-based nanocomposite thin films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2015

Keivan Davami*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
Mehrdad Shaygan
Affiliation:
Advanced Microelectronic Center Aachen (AMICA), AMO GmbH, 52074 Aachen, Germany
Igor Bargatin
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: kdavami@seas.upenn.edu
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Abstract

While planar graphene has revolutionized science and engineering in many different areas, one of its close relatives, vertical graphene (VG), also known as carbon nanowalls, has not been investigated as extensively. Compared to planar graphene that is grown parallel to the substrate, VG can grow almost vertically on a wide variety of substrates. In this study, we report the fabrication and characterization of VG-based nanocomposite thin films, where the graphene sheets are uniformly distributed in the host polymer. A novel fabrication method was developed and the properties of the fabricated nanocomposites were characterized. The results showed that in our method graphene sheets are much more uniformly dispersed and common issues in graphene nanocomposites, such as agglomeration and breaking of the sheets during dispersion, are avoided. The increase in the Young's modulus and tensile strength of the fabricated nanocomposites is much higher than that of the samples fabricated using the traditional methods of randomly dispersing graphene using a sonicator or high-speed stirrer.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2015 

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References

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