Abstract
Graphene oxide (GO) sheets have been used as a model system to study how the mechanical properties of two-dimensional building blocks scale to their bulk form, such as paper-like, lamellar-structured thin films. Here, we report that the modulus of multilayer GO films can be significantly enhanced if some of the sheets are drastically weakened by introducing in-plane porosity. Nanometer-sized pores are introduced in GO sheets by chemical etching. Membrane-deflection measurements at the single-layer level show that the sheets are drastically weakened as the in-plane porosity increases. However, the mechanical properties of the corresponding multilayer films are much less sensitive to porosity. Surprisingly, the co-assembly of pristine and etched GO sheets yields even stiffer films than those made from pristine sheets alone. This is attributed to the more compliant nature of the soft porous sheets, which act as a binder to improve interlayer packing and load transfer in the multilayer films.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 3677 |
| Journal | Nature communications |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2019 |
Funding
The US authors thank the support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR-N000141612838 to J.H.) and the Amy Research Office (W911NF1510068 to H.D.E.). T.H.H. thank the support from the Basic Science Research Program (2016R1A6A1A03013422) of the National Research Foundation of Korea. R.A.S-C. acknowledges support from NSF through the Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP) and a Royal Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship from the Northwestern University. The authors thank Dr Fan Zhou for assistance in the preparation of the Si substrate.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- General Physics and Astronomy