Lately, Raman spectroscopy has become powerful tool for quality assessment of graphene analogues with identification of intensity ratio of Raman active D-band and G-band ( ID/IG ratio) as a vital parameter for quantification of defects. However, during chemical reduction of graphitic oxide (GrO) to reduced GrO (RGrO), the increased ID/ IG ratio is often wrongly recognized as defect augmentation, with “formation of more numerous yet smaller size sp2 domains” as its explanation. Herein, by giving due attention to normalized peak height, full-width half-maxima and integrated peak area of Raman D- and G-bands, and compliment the findings by XRD data, we have shown that in-plane size of sp2 domains actually increases upon chemical reduction. Particularly, contrary to increased ID/ IG ratio, the calculated decrease in integrated peak area ratio ( AD/AG ratio) in conjunction with narrowing of D-band and broadening of G-band, evinced the decrease in in-plane defects. Finally, as duly supported by reduction induced broadening of interlayer-spacing characteristic XRD peak and narrowing of ~ 43° centered XRD hump, we have also shown that the sp2 domains actually expands in size and the observed increase in ID/ IG ratio is indeed due to increase in across-plane defects, formed via along-the-layer slicing of graphitic domains.

To observe the formation of defects at the interface between an oxide semiconductor and SiO2, ZnO was preparedon SiO2 with various oxygen gas flow rates by RF magnetron sputtering deposition. The crystallinity of ZnO depends on thecharacteristic of the surface of the substrate. The crystallinity of ZnO on a Si wafer increased due to the activation of ionicinteractions after an annealing process, whereas that of ZnO on SiO2 changed due to the various types of defects which hadformed as a result of the deposition conditions and the annealing process. To observe the chemical shift to understand of defectdeformations at the interface between the ZnO and SiO2, the O 1s electron spectra were convoluted into three sub-peaks bya Gaussian fitting. The O 1s electron spectra consisted of three peaks as metal oxygen (at 530.5eV), O2− ions in an oxygen-deficient region (at 531.66eV) and OH bonding (at 532.5eV). In view of the crystallinity from the peak (103) in the XRDpattern, the metal oxygen increased with a decrease in the crystallinity. However, the low FWHM (full width at half maximum)at the (103) plane caused by the high crystallinity depended on the increment of the oxygen vacancies at 531.66eV due tothe generation of O2− ions in the oxygen-deficient region formed by thermal activation energy.