The possibility to produce graphene oxide (rGO) device on a flexible polymeric substrate has attracted wide interest thanks to the excellent properties of GOr and to the low-cost and up-scalable process involved in the fabrication of polymeric film.
In this work, a thin film of GO water dispersion was drop casted and air dried onto polyethylene terephthalate (PET) flexible substrate. The resulting films were activated through UV pre-treatment for different irradiation times. After that, the flexible samples were patterned with an infrared laser source of commercially available LightScribe CD/DVD optical drive to reduces the GO to rGO. UV pre-treatment and Light scribe patterning produce a colour changing of GO-PET from brown to black that is strictly correlated to exposure times. Laser Patterning reduction of GO to rGO was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy by progressive intensity loss of signals regarding oxygen functional groups from GO-PET to rGO-PET. The treatment allows to directly pattern conducting rGO device in an insulating GO matrix, without the need of pre-patterned mask and it permits to modulate the wettability of the resulting films from hydrophilic to hydrophobic as confirmed by contact angle measurements, suggesting interesting potential applications of this system in the field of microfluidic. Additionally, the resulting film shows excellent mechanical flexibility due to the use of polymer film substrate.
Laser scribing technology can produce more economical and time-saving graphene-based circuits/systems for practical application in electronics, sensors and actuators systems.