A bottom-up approach for the synthesis of highly ordered fullerene-intercalated graphene hybrids

Abstract

Much of the research effort on graphene focuses on its use as a building block for the development of new hybrid nanostructures with well-defined dimensions and properties suitable for applications such as gas storage, heterogeneous catalysis, gas/liquid separations, nanosensing, and biomedicine. Toward this aim, here we describe a new bottom-up approach, which combines self-assembly with the Langmuir–Schaefer deposition technique to synthesize graphene-based layered hybrid materials hosting fullerene molecules within the interlayer space. Our film preparation consists in a bottom-up layer-by-layer process that proceeds via the formation of a hybrid organo-graphene oxide Langmuir film. The structure and composition of these hybrid fullerene-containing thin multilayers deposited on hydrophobic substrates were characterized by a combination of X-ray diffraction, Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies, atomic force and scanning electron microscopies, and conductivity measurements. The latter revealed that the presence of C60 within the interlayer spacing leads to an increase in electrical conductivity of the hybrid material as compared to the organo-graphene matrix alone.