Gold nanoparticle-mediated non-covalent functionalization of graphene for field-effect transistors
Dongha Shin, Hwa Rang Kim, Byung Hee Hong
Abstract
bonds, resulting in the degradation of the mechanical and electrical properties compared to pristine graphene. Here, we report a new strategy to chemically functionalize graphene for use in FETs without affecting the electrical performance. The key idea is to control the Fermi level of the graphene using the consecutive treatment of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and thiol-SAM (self-assembled monolayer) molecules, inducing positive and negative doping effects, respectively, by flipping the electric dipoles between AuNPs and SAMs. Based on this method, we demonstrate a Dirac voltage switcher on a graphene FET using heavy metal ions on functionalized graphene, where the carboxyl functional groups of the mediating SAMs efficiently form complexes with the metal ions and, as a result, the Dirac voltage can be positively shifted by different charge doping on graphene. We believe that the nanoparticle-mediated SAM functionalization of graphene can pave the way to developing high-performance chemical, environmental, and biological sensors that fully utilize the pristine properties of graphene.