Thermo-Electrical Properties of Composite Semiconductor Thin Films Composed of Nanocrystalline Graphene-Vanadium Oxides

This paper presents an experimental comparative study involving the characterization of the thermoelectrical and structural properties of graphene-based vanadium oxide (graphene-VOx) composite thin films on insulating and conducting surfaces (i.e., fused quartz and acrylic resin-impregnated graphite) produced by a sol-gel process via dipping-pyrolysis. A combination of FE-SEM and XPS analyses revealed that the graphene-VOx composite thin films (coated onto fused quartz) exhibiting the microstructure of 2-graded nanowire arrays with a diameter of 40-80 nm were composed of graphene, a few residual oxygen-containing functional groups (i.e., C-O and C=O), and the VO2 Magneli phase. The temperature-dependent electrical resistance measured on the as-deposited thin films clearly demonstrated that the graphene-VOx composite nanowire arrays thermally grown on fused quartz act as a semiconductor switch, with a transition temperature of 64.7 degrees C in the temperature range of -20 degrees C to 140 degrees C, resulting from the contributions of graphene and graphene oxides. In contrast, the graphene-VOx composite thin films deposited onto acrylic resin-impregnated graphite exhibit a superlinear semiconducting property of extremely low electrical resistance with negative temperature coefficients (i.e., approximately four orders of magnitude lower than that of the fused quartz), despite the similar microstructural and morphological characteristics. This difference is attributed to the synergistic effects of the paramagnetic metal feature of the tightly stacked nanowire arrays consisting of hexagonal V2O3 on the intrinsic electrical properties of the acrylic resin-impregnated graphite substrate, as revealed by FE-SEM, EDX, AFM, and XRD measurements. Although the thermo-sensitive electrical properties of the graphene-VOx composite thin films are very substrate specific, the applicability of graphene sheets can be considerably effective in the formation of highly planar arrays of VOx nanowires to enhance carrier transport.