Investigation on Electrical Properties of Printed Graphene Subjected to Aging, Ambient Environment and Gamma Radiation

Advancements in printable electronics technology allow the technique to populate laboratories on a widespread scale due to advantages printing electronics holds over customary fabrication methods. For utilization of printed electronics in cosmic environments it behooves end-users to understand the effects of ionizing radiation on these materials as such a threat to microelectronics can be quite detrimental even to the point of failure. This article contains results from exposing aerosol-jet printed graphene to gamma radiation and examines these effects when combined with aging to understand if printed graphene is a suitable candidate for space environments. It documents the effects of radiation on electrical properties of the printed graphene, and it demonstrates the roles of aging and exposure to ambient environment on these effects. Accompanying data taken of the majority hole carrier concentration show an increase of 3.57%, mobility 4.5%, and work function 2.21% from ionizing radiation. While these values are noticeable, aging alone increased the work function by 1.66%, and resistance by 22.9%. While the change observed in resistance is substantial, pacifying the graphene resulted in only a 5% change in resistance. This indicates the graphene ink proves resilient to gamma irradiation up to 1 Mrad(Si) when the discussed methods are implored. The findings indicate this method of aerosol-jet printing graphene based conductive inks demonstrates robustness against gamma radiation making the method a plausible alternative to traditional lithographic techniques even when utilized in environments where gamma radiation is prevalent such as space.