Hierarchy of electronic properties of chemically derived and pristine graphene probed by microwave imaging

Local electrical imaging using microwave impedance microscope is performed on graphene in different modalities, yielding a rich hierarchy of the local conductivity. The low-conductivity graphite oxide and its derivatives show significant electronic inhomogeneity. For the conductive chemical graphene, the residual defects lead to a systematic reduction of the microwave signals. In contrast, the signals on pristine graphene agree well with a lumped-element circuit model. The local impedance information can also be used to verify the electrical contact between overlapped graphene pieces.