Recently, graphene has attracted considerable attention because of its remarkable electronics, its mechanical and optical properties, and its unique single-atom thickness and two-dimensional sp2 carbon networking material [1]. Graphene oxide (GO) presents excellent properties in high water dispersibility, capabilities of bridging biomolecules on the surface, and acts as a highly efficient fluorescent quencher material [2]. Sngle-stranded DNA (ssDNA) has been reported to bind on a graphene surface through non-covalent π-π interactions, whereas double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) cannot bind on graphene surfaces. Aptamers are synthetic, single-stranded DNA or RNA molecules that fold into unique 3D structures, and bind specifically to a wide range of molecules such as chemicals, proteins, and drugs. Therefore, aptamer-based GO biosensors have been developed for detecting various targets [3-5]. Ionic strength and pH are closely related to biochemical reactions and interactions between aptamer and targets. However, less studies have been reported to the ionic strength and pH effects on GO and interaction between GO and DNA [6]. Phosphate buffer saline (PBS) was commonly used as isotonic reagent for protein solution. In this study, the fluorescence intensity of GO significantly decreasing with increasing concentration of PBS. In addition, increasing quenching effect was found in the group with PBS as solvent for GO-aptamer interaction. The reported report are of importance in further applications of GO in biosensors and biochemical reactions.

Kinetic isotope effects (KIE) are important phenomena in physical chemistry and have been investigated for a long time in relation to activation and rate of chemical reactions. KIE are easily observable for the hydrogen isotopes due to the large relative mass difference and have been studied for example in hydrogen transfer in organic chemistry such as acid and base catalysis, enzyme reactions and catalytic decomposition.

Here we present results of time-dependent x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) in order to investigate the kinetics of the hydrogenation/deuteration reaction of graphene. A pristine monolayer graphene was prepared under ultrahigh vacuum conditions by chemical vapor deposition on Ni(111) thin films epitaxial grown on W(110). Then a monolayer of Au was intercalated into the interface between Ni and graphene, making the latter quasi free-standing. The graphene layer was then exposed to hydrogen or deuterium atomic gas beams, obtained by thermal cracking in a tungsten capillary at T=3000 K. The maximum surface coverage was obtained after several hydrogenation or deuteration steps of different time. After each step XPS of the C1s line was performed in order to measure H/C and D/C ratios. After reaching saturation, the electronic structure of the hydrogenated and deuterated layer was analyzed by near-edge X-ray adsorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy at the carbon K-edge.

We have observed a strong inverse KIE for the hydrogenation/deuteration reaction leading to substantially faster adsorption and higher maximum D/C ratios as compared to H/C (D/C~35% vs. H/C~25%). These results can be understood by the fact that atomic D has a lower chemisorption barrier and a higher desorption barrier. Quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations can reproduce the experimental trends and reveal the contribution of the constituent chemisorption, reaction and associative desorption processes of H(D) atoms onto graphene. The reported case of a strong inverse KIE is an extremely unusual case and is important for isotope specific chemical reactivity in organic molecules and functionalized graphene.

Graphene is two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms. It is well known that the graphene sheets are strongly affected by their environment because of its extremely small thickness and large specific surface area. There are many reports about the chemical doping into graphene films induced by the support substrate and charge transfer. In this paper, we studied control of chemical doping to graphene flakes through the substrate engineering and using raman spectroscopy. We also demonstrate the selective adsorption of biomolecules toward the unique sensors.

We used sapphire surfaces for support substrates of graphene. After the acid treatment, the sapphire surfaces are terminated with hydroxyl groups, which work as adsorption sites of water molecules. We deposited graphene flakes on sapphire (0001) and (1-102) surfaces by mechanical exfoliation method. To reveal influence of a water layer at the interface between the sapphire surface and graphene, we annealed the sapphire surfaces at 700℃ for 1h just before graphene deposition and compared the G-peak and 2D-peak positions on Raman spectra.

We observed shift of G-peak and 2D-peak positions to wave numbers lower than those on the hydrophilic sapphire (0001) substrate. But, in the case of (1-102) surfaces, the G-peak and 2D-peak positions did not shift upon annealing. The peak positions are almost same among the annealed (0001), the annealed (1-102), and the on-annealed (1-102) surfaces. It is well known that formation of water layers on sapphire surfaces depends on plane directions¹⁾. A (0001) surface has more bound water molecules than the other faces. Therefore, the peak shifts were induced by the amount of water layer that existed at the interfaces between the sapphire surfaces and the graphene flakes. We demonstrated the adsorption of protein molecules on these surfaces. We used ferritin molecules, which are negatively charged for adsorption on the graphene flakes. We observed well-correlated adsorption pattern with the G-peak and the 2D-peak positions of Raman spectra. Ferritin molecules were preferentially adsorbed to the graphene flakes that were supported by hydrophilic (0001) surfaces. Amount of adsorbed ferritin molecules to the other surfaces were dramatically small. These different adsorption behaviors directly show the effect of chemical doping from the interfacial water molecules to the graphene flakes.

In summary, we demonstrated control of protein adsorption to the graphene surfaces by using the suitable support substrates for graphene towards the biosensors without any labeling to substrates and targets.

1) T. Tsukamoto et al. J. Phys. Chem. C (2012) 116, 4732-4737.

MoS₂ is a very promising material for photocatalysis and it has many current applications in catalytic hydrodesulfurization. Similar to graphene, it is a layered material. Recently, it has been shown that it transitions from an 1.6 eV inidirect bandgap to a 1.9 eV direct bandgap semiconductor when reduced to a monolayer. Important for its usefulness e.g. in catalytic hydrogen splitting, is not only its bandgap but also its band alignment when deposited on different substrates. Using CVD grown MoS₂ on a copper surface, we use XPS to ascertain the identity of the material and the nature of its internal bonding when on this metallic substrate. Spectroscopy also shows a metal induced reduction of the bandgap to 1.5 eV and a strong signature of n-type doping through the underlayer. Density Functional Theory calculation corroborate this finding and provide a microscopic understanding of the bandgap and alignment depending on the number of MoS₂ layers and the presence of any substrate.

Graphene is an ideal material for long-range spin transport due to its very high carrier mobilities and long spin lifetimes due to minimal spin-orbit scattering effects [1]. Direct spin injection into graphene has been demonstrated, but is inefficient due to the well-known bulk conductivity mismatch between graphene and a magnetic metal electrode. The standard approach to overcome this effect is to engineer a tunneling barrier at the interface to provide an effectively large spin-dependent interface resistance. However, for insulating tunnel barrier growth on graphene, great care must be taken to avoid 3D islanding due to the typically weak interactions between the substrate and deposited species [1].

An alternate approach is to consider the use of planar organic materials as interfacial layers to enhance spin injection into graphene. Since weak intermolecular interactions can be comparable in size to molecule-substrate interactions for planar aromatics on graphene, high quality film growth is more likely. We have studied the growth of iron phthalocyanine (FePc), a chemically-robust paramagnet, on epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001) by a combination of STM, STS, LEED, UPS, and density functional theory calculations. Our calculations predict an energetically weak interaction between graphene and FePc that nevertheless leads to a unique spin-dependent electronic mixing. A non-dispersive hybrid interface state is created along with a small gap in one spin sub-band while the graphene band structure is essentially unchanged in the other sub-band. STM and LEED indicate a highly-ordered, flat-lying monolayer film of FePc on epitaxial graphene and UPS measurements compare favorable with the calculated occupied density of states. STS studies of the ordered monolayer show an unoccupied state for FePc on graphene that is not present for FePc on graphite. We interpret this unique state as evidence for the predicted spin-polarized interface state.

*This work was funded by the NSF Phase I Center for Chemical Innovation: Center for Molecular Spintronics (CHE-0943975).

[1] Han et al., J. Magn. Mag. Mat. 324, 369 (2012).