Novel Synthesis of Slightly Fluorinated Graphene Quantum Dots with Luminescent and Paramagnetic Properties through Thermal Cutting of Fluorinated Graphene

Qian Feng; Wenqing Xiao; Yuan Liu; Yongping Zheng; Yuda Lin; Jiaxin Li; Qingying Ye; Zhigao Huang

doi:10.3390/ma11010091

Novel Synthesis of Slightly Fluorinated Graphene Quantum Dots with Luminescent and Paramagnetic Properties through Thermal Cutting of Fluorinated Graphene

Materials (Basel). 2018 Jan 8;11(1):91. doi: 10.3390/ma11010091.

Authors

Qian Feng^{1

2}, Wenqing Xiao^{3

4}, Yuan Liu⁵, Yongping Zheng^{6

7}, Yuda Lin^{8

9}, Jiaxin Li^{10

11}, Qingying Ye^{12

13}, Zhigao Huang^{14

15}

Affiliations

¹ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China. fengqian@fjnu.edu.cn.
² Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China. fengqian@fjnu.edu.cn.
³ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China. wqxiao1995@163.com.
⁴ Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China. wqxiao1995@163.com.
⁵ Faculty of Science, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China. linyuda1993@163.com.
⁶ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China. zyp@fjnu.edu.cn.
⁷ Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China. zyp@fjnu.edu.cn.
⁸ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China.
⁹ Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China.
¹⁰ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China. lijiaxin@fjnu.edu.cn.
¹¹ Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China. lijiaxin@fjnu.edu.cn.
¹² Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China. qyye@fjnu.edu.cn.
¹³ Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China. qyye@fjnu.edu.cn.
¹⁴ Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Manipulation and New Energy Materials, College of Physics and Energy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China. zghuang@fjnu.edu.cn.
¹⁵ Fujian Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center for Optoelectronic Semiconductors and Efficient Devices, Xiamen 361005, China. zghuang@fjnu.edu.cn.

Abstract

A novel approach has been developed to synthesize slightly fluorinated graphene quantum dots (GQDs-F) through thermal cutting of highly fluorinated graphene. The fluorinated graphene with substantial structure defects is fragile and is readily attacked. The direct evaporation of abundant CF_n (n = 2, 3) groups near structure defects lead to the loss of adjacent skelton C atoms, and the fluorinated graphene can be thermally cut into GQDs-F with a relatively uniform nanosize in pyrolysis at 810 K. The GQDs-F with a low F/C atomic ratio of ca. 0.03 exhibit excitation wavelength-dependent properties with multicolor photoluminescence (PL) from blue to green. At the same time, F adatoms that are most likely located at the edges of GQDs-F have a high efficiency of introducing paramagnetic centres, and GQDs-F show a strong paramagnetism because of sp³-type defects and magnetic zigzag edges. The graphene quantum dots with such multimodal capabilities should have great applied value in material science.

Keywords: fluorinated graphene; graphene quantum dots; paramagnetism; photoluminescence; thermal cutting.