Synthesis of blue light-emitting graphene quantum dots and their application in flexible nonvolatile memory

We presented a facile method to prepare graphene quantum dots (GQDs) from double-walled carbon nanotube with blue light emission in a chlorobenzene solution, which enabled the preparation of GQD-polymer hybrid nanocomposite. The wavelength-dependent fluorescent lifetime of the GQDs was investigated by using time-resolved photoluminescence technique. Significantly, nonvolatile rewritable memory effect was observed for the GQD-based nanocomposite, suggesting the promising applications of GQDs in data storage. Moreover, due to the easy solution process, we demonstrated the design and realization of flexible GQD-based memory device. This work may expand the application of GQDs to the portable electronic devices. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.