We report the synthesis of capsule-embedded reduced graphene oxide (rGO) by photocatalytic reduction in the presence of peanut shaped α-Fe2O3 particles under visible light. This process is able to produce highly stabilized water dispersible rGO without the help of a stabilizer, which is suitable to make thin films on a glass substrate by the drop casting method. In addition, the evolution of the morphology with different visible light exposure times ranging from 5 to 120 minutes reveals that the catalyst leads to transformation of a few rGO sheets into capsules via a core–shell structure. These capsules are stable on the rGO sheet at a vacuum of 10−9 Torr, but unstable under vacuum annealing at 400 °C and 10−5 Torr that created impressions on the rGO film. The bandgap of the capsule-embedded rGO decreases non-linearly with the visible light exposure time; from 2.47 eV at 5 min to 1.73 eV at 120 min. The vacuum annealed rGO films on glass substrates show an electrical conductivity of 2000 S m−1 at 300 K and the conduction is dominated by two-dimensional variable range hopping. The formation of capsules is described based on electrostatic interactions in association with the dipole force of the monodispersed peanut shaped α-Fe2O3 particles, whereas, the bandgap opening and high conductivity are attributed to the residual oxygen functional groups such as carbonyl (>C
O) and epoxy (C–O–C) on the rGO, in addition to the modulated surface morphology.
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