Hyoyoung Lee

A homochiral metal-organic porous material for enantioselective separation and catalysis

Inorganic zeolites are used for many practical applications that exploit the microporosity intrinsic to their crystal structures. Organic analogues, which are assembled from modular organic building blocks linked through non-covalent interactions, are of interest for similar applications. These range from catalysis, separation and sensor technology to optoelectronics, with enantioselective separation and catalysis being especially important for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The modular construction of these analogues allows flexible and rational design, as both the architecture and chemical functionality of the micropores can, in principle, be precisely controlled. Porous organic solids with large voids and high framework stability have been produced, and investigations into the range of accessible pore functionalities have been initiated. For example, catalytically active organic zeolite analogues are known, as are chiral metal–organic open-framework materials. However, the latter are only available as racemic mixtures, or lack the degree of framework stability or void space that is required for practical applications. Here we report the synthesis of a homochiral metal–organic porous material that allows the enantioselective inclusion of metal complexes in its pores and catalyses a transesterification reaction in an enantioselective manner. Our synthesis strategy, which uses enantiopure metal–organic clusters as secondary building blocks, should be readily applicable to chemically modified cluster components and thus provide access to a wide range of porous organic materials suitable for enantioselective separation and catalysis.

Reduced graphene oxide by chemical graphitization

Reduced graphene oxides (RG-Os) have attracted considerable interest, given their potential applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices and circuits. However, very little is known regarding the chemically induced reduction method of graphene oxide (G-O) in both solution and gas phases, with the exception of the hydrazine-reducing agent, even though it is essential to use the vapour phase for the patterning of hydrophilic G-Os on prepatterned substrates and in situ reduction to hydrophobic RG-Os. In this paper, we report a novel reducing agent system (hydriodic acid with acetic acid (HI-AcOH)) that allows for an efficient, one-pot reduction of a solution-phased RG-O powder and vapour-phased RG-O (VRG-O) paper and thin film. The reducing agent system provided highly qualified RG-Os by mass production, resulting in highly conducting RG-O(HI-AcOH). Moreover, VRG-O(HI-AcOH) paper and thin films were prepared at low temperatures (40 °C) and were found to be applicable to flexible devices. This one-pot method is expected to advance research on highly conducting graphene platelets.

One-pot reduction of graphene oxide at subzero temperatures

We report a new reducing agent system: hydriodic acid with trifluoroacetic acid, which can chemically convert graphene oxide into reduced graphene oxide at temperatures below 0 °C in solution. This is the first achievement to produce reduced graphene oxide at subzero temperature with a mass production.

High-Quality Reduced Graphene Oxide by a Dual-Function Chemical Reduction and Healing Process

A new chemical dual-functional reducing agent, thiophene, was used to produce high-quality reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as a result of a chemical reduction of graphene oxide (GO) and the healing of rGO. Thiophene reduced GO by donation of electrons with acceptance of oxygen while it was converted into an intermediate oxidised polymerised thiophene that was eventually transformed into polyhydrocarbon by loss of sulphur atoms. Surprisingly, the polyhydrocarbon template helped to produce good-quality rGOC (chemically reduced) and high-quality rGOCT after thermal treatment. The resulting rGOCT nanosheets did not contain any nitrogen or sulphur impurities, were highly deoxygenated and showed a healing effect. Thus the electrical properties of the as-prepared rGOCT were superior to those of conventional hydrazine-produced rGO that require harsh reaction conditions. Our novel dual reduction and healing method with thiophene could potentially save energy and facilitate the commercial mass production of high-quality graphene.

Vertical alignments of graphene sheets spatially and densely piled for fast ion diffusion in compact supercapacitors.

Supercapacitors with porous carbon structures have high energy storage capacity. However, the porous nature of the carbon electrode, composed mainly of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) derivatives, negatively impacts the volumetric electrochemical characteristics of the supercapacitors because of poor packing density (<0.5 g cm(-3)). Herein, we report a simple method to fabricate highly dense and vertically aligned reduced graphene oxide (VArGO) electrodes involving simple hand-rolling and cutting processes. Because of their vertically aligned and opened-edge graphene structure, VArGO electrodes displayed high packing density and highly efficient volumetric and areal electrochemical characteristics, very fast electrolyte ion diffusion with rectangular CV curves even at a high scan rate (20 V/s), and the highest volumetric capacitance among known rGO electrodes. Surprisingly, even when the film thickness of the VArGO electrode was increased, its volumetric and areal capacitances were maintained.

Anti‐Solvent Derived Non‐Stacked Reduced Graphene Oxide for High Performance Supercapacitors

An anti-solvent for graphene oxide (GO), hexane, is introduced to increase the surface area and the pore volume of the non-stacked GO/reduced GO 3D structure and allows the formation of a highly crumpled non-stacked GO powder, which clearly shows ideal supercapacitor behavior.

2D Graphene Oxide Nanosheets as an Adhesive Over-Coating Layer for Flexible Transparent Conductive Electrodes

In recent, highly transparent and flexible, two-dimensional (2D) graphene oxide (GO) nanosheet has been paid attention for various applications. Due to an existence of a large amount of oxygen functional groups, the single 2D GO nanosheet has an insulating, transparent, highly dispersible in the eco-friendly water, and hydrophilic property that has strong adhesion to the hydrophilic surface, which will be the best candidate for the use of an over-coating layer (OCL) and protecting layer for a conductive nanowire based indium-free transparent conductive film (TCF). The ultrathin 2D adhesive GO OCL nanosheet is expected to tightly hold silver nanowires (AgNWs), reduce sheet resistance and produce uniform TCF, providing complete solution that simultaneously solves a high haze, low transparency with a conventional OCL and mechanical instability in cases without a thick OCL. Our novel 2D insulating and hydrophilic GO OCL successfully provided a large-area, flexible, and highly transparent AgNW TCF.

Highly Air‐Stable Phosphorus‐Doped n‐Type Graphene Field‐Effect Transistors

Phosphorus-doped double-layered graphene field-effect transistors (PDGFETs) show much stronger air-stable n-type behavior than nitrogen-doped double-layered graphene FETs (NDGFETs), even under an oxygen atmosphere, due to strong nucleophilicity, which may lead to real applications for air-stable n-type graphene channels.

Deep-level defect characteristics in pentacene organic thin films

Organic thin-film transistors using the pentacene as an active electronic material have shown the mobility of 0.8 cm2/V s and the grains larger than 1 μm. To study the characteristics of electronic charge concentrations and the interface traps of the pentacene thin films, the capacitance properties were measured in the metal/insulator/organic semiconductor structure device by employing the capacitance–voltage and deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements. Based on the DLTS measurements, the concentrations and the energy levels of hole and electron traps in the obtained pentacene films were formed to be approximately 4.2×1015 cm−3 at Ev+0.24 eV, 9.6×1014 cm−3 at Ev+1.08 eV, 6.5×1015  cm−3 at Ev+0.31 eV and 2.6×1014 cm−3 at Ec−0.69 eV.

Nonvolatile memory device using gold nanoparticles covalently bound to reduced graphene oxide.

Nonvolatile memory devices using gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sheets were fabricated in both horizontal and vertical structures. The horizontal memory device, in which a singly and doubly overlayered semiconducting rGO channel was formed by simply using a spin-casting technique to connect two gold electrodes, was designed for understanding the origin of charging effects. AuNPs were chemically bound to the rGO channel through a π-conjugated molecular linker. The π-conjugated bifunctional molecular linker, 4-mercapto-benzenediazonium tetrafluoroborate (MBDT) salt, was newly synthesized and used as a molecular bridge to connect the AuNPs and rGOs. By using a self-assembly technique, the diazonium functional group of the MBDT molecular linker was spontaneously immobilized on the rGOs. Then, the monolayered AuNPs working as capacitors were covalently connected to the thiol groups of the MBDT molecules, which were attached to rGOs (AuNP-frGO). These covalent bonds were confirmed by XPS analyses. The current-voltage characteristics of both the horizontal and vertical AuNP-frGO memory devices showed noticeable nonlinear hysteresis, stable write-multiple read-erase-multiple read cycles over 1000 s, and a long retention time over 700 s. In addition, the vertical AuNP-frGO memory device showed a large current ON/OFF ratio and high stability.