Liquid‐Processed 2D Aromatic Amorphous Carbon: Defect Engineering and Universal Transport Scaling
Liquid-processed 2D aromatic amorphous carbons are emerging as a new materials platform in which distorted sp<sup>2</sup> networks combine scalability with unconventional electronic transport. Here, we report a deterministic pathway to produce graphene-derived amorphous 2D carbon thin films by combining the water processability of graphene oxide with rapid thermal quenching. During heating, the stepwise removal of oxygen groups generates vacancies and topological defects; rapid traversal of this regime prevents structural recovery and yields a kinetically trapped quasi-amorphous phase, termed quenched reduced graphene oxide (qRGO). XPS and UPS confirm that qRGO maintains predominantly sp<sup>2</sup> bonding, indicating a distorted aromatic network rather than a transition to sp<sup>3</sup>-rich amorphous carbon. Correlative structural and spectroscopic analyses reveal suppressed long-range order and boundary-like defect character in qRGO, contrasting with the vacancy-type defects of nanocrystalline reduced graphene oxide (RGO). Transport measurements show that RGO retains partial coherence and weak localization, whereas qRGO evolves into a strongly disordered regime governed by variable-range hopping. Despite these differences, both systems collapse onto a universal power-law scaling of resistivity. These results demonstrate that thermal-kinetic control of oxygen-driven defect formation provides a scalable route to functional 2D amorphous carbon films.
Authors
- P. Samorì
- Fabiola Liscio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4865-1385)
- Veronica Valentini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2081-1164)
- D.M. Trucchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8278-4707)
- Andrea Liscio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2986-3398)
- Damiano Ricciarelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4213-2514)
- E. Placidi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3820-8451)
- A. Fondacaro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2331-3638)
- Giovanni Vinai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4882-663X)
- A. Ruocco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4909-7216)
- S. Iacobucci (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5000-2408)
- Gaetana Petrone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4612-2009)
- Federico Chianese (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6895-2137)
- Orlando Castellano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5769-2140)
- Giuseppe Fisicaro
- Nicolò Galvani
- Jasper Rikkert Plaisier
- Antonino Lamagna
- Samuel Lara Avila
- Sara Fiori
- Alice Apponi
- Verónica Montes García
Institutions
- Roma Tre University (IT)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A. (IT)
- EM Strasbourg Business School (FR)
- Nanosc (Sweden) (SE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma Tre (IT)
- Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ES)
- Institute of Nanostructured Materials (IT)
- Istituto Officina dei Materiali (IT)
- Institute of Structure of Matter (IT)
- Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IT)
- Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
- Université de Strasbourg (FR)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Small
- Published
- 2026-02-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202512128
- Primary Topic
- Graphene research and applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Università degli Studi Roma Tre
- Graphene Flagship
- European Commission
- Chalmers Tekniska Högskola
- Sapienza Università di Roma
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
- Stiftelsen Chalmers tekniska högskola