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The photocatalytic potential of large area CVD grown nitrogen doped graphene (NGr) has been explored though the chemical transformation of 4-nitrobenzene thiol into p,p'-dimercaptoazobenzene. Decoration of NGr with Ag nanocubes with rounded edges to form NGr/Ag nanohybrids resulted in a slight increase in the work-function and a decrease in the n-type character of NGr due to ground state transfer of negative charge from NGr to Ag. The Ag nanocubes exhibited a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) at ~425 nm. When the NGr/Ag nanohybrids were illuminated with visible light of wavelength close to the LSPR peak, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) indicated a dramatic change in surface potential of −225 mV and Raman spectra detected electron accumulation in NGr, which are attributed to a high local field enhancement-mediated hot electron injection into NGr and the formation of long-lived charge separated states. Pristine nitrogen doped graphene and its coupled system with plasmonic Ag nanoparticles showed superior photocatalytic performance compared to bare plasmonic Ag catalyst. While standalone Ag NPs were unable to complete the transformation of 4-NBT into DMAB even at a laser power of 10 mW, NGr/Ag nanohybrids completed this transformation at a laser power of 1 mW, pointing to the high photoreduction strength of NGr/Ag. Density functional theory (DFT) based computational modeling was used to examine the electronic structure of graphene doped with graphitic, pyridinic and pyrrolic nitrogen dopant atoms. DFT results indicated an enhanced chemical reactivity of NGr due to stronger localization of charge at the dopant sites and a pronounced difference in the projected density of states (PDOS) for carbon atoms in proximity to, and distant from, the nitrogen dopant sites.

Reduced graphene oxide bundles with sharp tips were fabricated by a simple approach with freeze-drying and hydrothermal reduction, and this approach could modify the surface topography of the field emission cathode and make more graphene bundles sharpen and aligned. This field emission cathode material displayed excellent field emission properties decreased from 2.9 V μm−1 to a low turn-on field of 0.8 V μm−1 at the emission current density of 10 μA cm−2. Sharp graphene emitter arrays have sharp protruded tips in abundance, leading to an enlarged field enhancement factor from 1683 to 10182, which was much better than those films prepared by other methods we adopted. It also revealed a good field emission stability with no degradation in the current for 3 h. We believe that this approach can enhance the field emission performance of graphene emitters, which could be widely candidate for various field emission applications.