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Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Fabrication of Gate-tunable Graphene Devices for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies with Coulomb Impurities
Published on: July 24, 2015
Covalent Carbene Functionalization of Graphene: Toward Chemical Band-Gap Manipulation
Toby Sainsbury1, Melissa Passarelli1, Mira Naftaly1
1National Physical Laboratory , Teddington, London TW11 0LW, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
In this work, we employ dibromocarbene (DBC) radicals to covalently functionalize solution exfoliated graphene via the formation of dibromocyclopropyl adducts. This is achieved using a basic aqueous/organic biphasic reaction mixture to decompose the DBC precursor, bromoform, in conjunction with a phase-transfer catalyst to facilitate ylide formation and carbene migration to graphene substrates. DBC-functionalized graphene (DBC-graphene) was characterized using a range of spectroscopic and analytical techniques to confirm the covalent nature of functionalization. Modified optical and electronic properties of DBC-graphene were investigated using UV-vis spectroscopy, analysis of electrical I-V transport properties, and noncontact terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The implications of carbene functionalization of graphene are considered in the context of scalable radical functionalization methodologies for bulk-scale graphene processing and controlled band-gap manipulation of graphene.
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