Characterisation, coverage, and orientation of functionalised graphene using sum-frequency generation spectroscopy.

We report the unambiguous detection of phenyl groups covalently attached to functionalised graphene using non-linear spectroscopy. Sum-frequency generation was employed to probe graphene on a gold surface after chemical functionalisation using a benzene diazonium salt. We observe a distinct resonance at 3064 cm-1 which can clearly be assigned to an aromatic C-H stretch by comparison with a self-assembled monolayer on a gold substrate formed from benzenethiol.

"Perfecting" WATERGATE: clean proton NMR spectra from aqueous solution.

A simple modification of the WATERGATE solvent suppression method greatly improves the quality of (1)H NMR spectra obtainable from samples in H(2)O. The new method allows (1)H signals to be measured even when close in chemical shift to the signal of water, as for example in the NMR spectra of carbohydrates.