Optical properties of amine-functionalized graphene oxide

Important applications of graphene oxide (GO) its derivatives have been found in several areas: energy materials, water treatment, environmental, catalytic, photocatalytic, and biomedical technologies. Among them, the application of GO in optical biosensors has attracted ever-increasing interest in the past few years. In the present work, GO was amine-functionalized by a solvent-free one-step method with two aromatic amines: 1-aminopyrene (AP), and 2-aminofluorene (AF); and one aliphatic amine 1-octadecylamine (ODA). Particle size was estimated by field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Optical properties have been evaluated by application of photoluminescence (PL), FTIR, UV–VIS, and Raman spectroscopy. As a result, this study offers an efficient way to tune the optical properties due to their amine functionalization, favoring the development of optoelectronic and biological applications using graphene-based materials in the future.