Characterizing Graphene with Cost-effective Raman Systems

With an explosion of scientific interest in graphene based material for its incredible electronic, optical, and physical properties; it became clear that we needed to develop a cost effective instrument that could be used for quality determination as well as characterization. Raman spectroscopy has long been the most versatile tool for this; however, with Graphene’s low Raman scatter, frequent impurities, and low laser damage thresholds typically only high-end Raman microscopy systems (costing hundreds of thousands of dollars) were available for the job. 

Here we present a new lower cost instrument, the StellarNet HYPER-Nova, which bridges this performance gap.  Also, we discuss some of the more practical issues surrounding Raman spectroscopy of Graphene as well as many useful features for graphene characterization found in its Raman spectrum.