Characterisation of graphene electrodes for microsystems and microfluidic devices

Fabrication of microsystems is traditionally achieved with photolithography. However, this fabrication technique can be expensive and non-ideal for integration with microfluidic systems. As such, graphene fabrication is explored as an alternative. This graphene fabrication can be achieved with graphite oxide undergoing optical exposure, using optical disc drives, to impose specified patterns and convert to graphene. This work characterises such a graphene fabrication, and provides fabrication, electrical, microfluidic, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterisations. In the fabrication characterisation, a comparison is performed between traditional photolithography fabrication and the new graphene fabrication. (Graphene fabrication details are also provided.) Here, the minimum achievable feature size is identified and graphene fabrication is found to compare favourably with traditional photolithography fabrication. In the electrical characterisation, the resistivity of graphene is measured as a function of fabrication dose in the optical disc drive and saturation effects are noted. In the microfluidic characterisation, the wetting properties of graphene are shown through an investigation of the contact angle of a microdroplet positioned on a surface that is treated with varying fabrication dose. In the SEM characterisation, the observed effects in the previous characterisations are attributed to chemical or physical effects through measurement of SEM energy dispersive X-ray spectra and SEM images, respectively. Overall, graphene fabrication is revealed to be a viable option for development of microsystems and microfluidics.