A general route towards defect and pore engineering in graphene

Defect engineering in graphene is important for tailoring graphene's properties thus applicable in various applications such as porous membranes and ultra-capacitors. In this paper, we report a general route towards defect- and pore- engineering in graphene through remote plasma treatments. Oxygen plasma irradiation was employed to create homogenous defects in graphene with controllable density from a few to ≈10³ (μm^-2). The created defects can be further enlarged into nanopores by hydrogen plasma anisotropic etching with well-defined pore size of a few nm or above. The achieved smallest nanopores are ≈2 nm in size, showing the potential for ultra-small graphene nanopores fabrication. A general route towards defect- and pore- engineering in graphene through remote plasma treatments is reported. Oxygen plasma irradiation is employed to create homogenous defects in graphene with controllable density. The created defects can be further enlarged into nanopores by hydrogen plasma anisotropic etching with well-defined pore size. The achieved smallest nanopores are ≈2 nm in size.