Tuning the Band Gap Energy of Reduced Graphene Oxide Using Biopolymer Chitosan for High Power and Frequency Device Applications

There has been continued research to realize the potential of wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors for power switching applications since larger band gap allows higher power and temperature operation and the generation of more energetic (i.e. blue) photons. As compared to other semiconductor materials, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has a low bandgap energy, which limits its application for high power semiconductors. Blending rGO with chitosan bio-polymer widens its bandgap, which can be tuned by controlling the amount of chitosan. In this study, the interplay between the resultant structure and opto-electronic properties of rGO obtained from coconut husks via thermal pyrolysis blended with chitosan from squid gladii have been systematically studied. We thus report that the optical band gap of rGO can be systematically controlled by careful addition of chitosan in their blend. This can give it a new application as high power semiconductors