Study of optical properties of graphene flakes and its derivatives in aqueous solutions

In this work, we study optical spectroscopy of graphene flakes and its derivatives such as graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide in the same surfactant-free aqueous solution. We show that transmittance (T) and absorbance (A) spectra of different graphene suspension is nearly feature-less as a function of wavelength (λ) in the VIS-NIR range (350-1000 nm) except graphene oxide solution and the smallest graphene flakes, and they change linearly with concentration. The optical absorption coefficient (at 660 nm) of pure graphene solution seems to be flake-size dependent, changing from ∼730 mL·mg^-1m^-1 (for ∼25 µm flake size) to ∼4400 mL·mg^-1m^-1 (for ∼2 µm flake size), and it is several times higher than in the case of graphene oxide, which also varies with type and level of doping/defects (checked by FTIR and statistical Raman spectroscopy). Finally, we show wavelength-dependent evolution of optical absorption coefficient in the VIS-NIR range, which is roughly mimicking the A(λ) function but is strongly material-dependent. Our study could be useful for application of graphene solution in optofluidic devices, functional inks or printed flexible optoelectronics.