Laser micromachining of screen-printed graphene for forming electrode structures

There has been increasing research interest in electronic applications of graphene-based devices fabricated using electrode patterning techniques. This study presents a laser ablation technique along with a screen printing process for fabricating graphene patterns on a glass substrate. First, homogeneous multilayer films on the glass substrate are coated with graphene ink by using the screen printing process. Subsequently, optimal ablation was performed using an ultraviolet nanosecond laser, and the effective number of pulses decreased with an increase in the scanning speed and a decrease in the overlapping rate. Here, the pulsed overlap of a laser spot was determined to be approximately 90% for 75 pulses at a scanning speed of 250 mm/s. Experimental results showed continuous single-line ablation along the laser scanning path in the graphene films. Furthermore, linear current-voltage (I-V) curves showed the multilayer graphene characteristics of ablated devices for forming electrode structures. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.