Laser Photoreduction of Graphene Aerogel Microfibers: Dynamic Electrical and Thermal Behaviors

This work reports the dynamic behaviors of graphene aerogel (GA) microfibers during and after continuous wave (CW) laser photoreduction. The reduction results in one‐order of magnitude increase in the electrical conductivity. The experimental results reveal the exact mechanisms of photoreduction as it occurs: immediate photochemical removal of oxygen functional groups causing a sharp decrease in electrical resistance and subsequent laser heating that facilitates thermal rearrangement of GO sheets towards more graphene‐like domains. X‐ray and Raman spectroscopy analysis confirm that photoreduction removes virtually all oxygen and nitrogen containing functional groups. Interestingly, a dynamic period immediately following the end of laser exposure shows a slow, gradual increase in electrical resistance, suggesting that a proportion of the electrical conductivity enhancement from photoreduction is not permanent. A two‐part experiment monitoring the resistance changes in real‐time before and after photoreduction is conducted to investigate this critical period. The thermal diffusivity evolution of the microfiber is tracked and shows an improvement of 277 % after all photoreduction experiments. A strong linear coherency between thermal diffusivity and electrical conductivity is also uncovered. This is the first known work to explore both the dynamic electrical and thermal evolution of a GO‐based aerogel during and after photoreduction.