Voltage-Dependent Electronic Transport Properties of Reduced Graphene Oxide with Various Coverage Ratios

Graphene is mainly implemented by these methods: exfoliating, unzipping of carbon nanotubes, chemical vapour deposition, epitaxial growth and the reduction of graphene oxide. The latter option has the advantage of low cost and precision. However, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) contains hydrogen and/or oxygen atoms hence the structure and properties of the rGO and intrinsic graphene are different. Considering the advantages of the implementation and utilization of rGO, voltage-dependent electronic transport properties of several rGO samples with various coverage ratios are investigated in this work. Ab initio simulations based on density functional theory combined with non-equilibrium Green’s function formalism are used to obtain the current–voltage characteristics and the voltage-dependent transmission spectra of rGO samples. It is shown that the transport properties of rGO are strongly dependent on the coverage ratio. Obtained results indicate that some of the rGO samples have negative differential resistance characteristics while normally insulating rGO can behave as conducting beyond a certain threshold voltage. The reasons of the peculiar electronic transport behaviour of rGO samples are further investigated, taking the transmission eigenstates and their localization degree into consideration. The findings of this study are expected to be helpful for engineering the characteristics of rGO structures.