Assembling tin dioxide quantum dots to graphene nanosheets by a facile ultrasonic route

Nanocomposites have significant potential in the development of advanced materials for numerous applications. Tin dioxide (SnO2) is a functional material with wide-ranging prospects because of its high electronic mobility and wide band gap. Graphene as the basic plane of graphite is a single atomic layer two-dimensional sp(2) hybridized carbon material. Both have excellent physical and chemical properties. Here, SnO2 quantum dots/graphene composites have been successfully fabricated by a facile ultrasonic method. The experimental investigations indicated that the graphene was exfoliated and decorated with SnO2 quantum dots, which was dispersed uniformly on both sides of the graphene. The size distribution of SnO2 quantum dots was estimated to be ranging from 4 to 6 nm and their average size was calculated to be about 4.8 ± 0.2 nm. This facile ultrasonic route demonstrated that the loading of SnO2 quantum dots was an effective way to prevent graphene nanosheets from being restacked during the reduction. During the calcination process, the graphene nanosheets distributed between SnO2 nanoparticles have also prevented the agglomeration of SnO2 nanoparticles, which were beneficial to the formation of SnO2 quantum dots.