Single-step deposition of high-mobility graphene at reduced temperatures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method for producing high-mobility graphene at temperatures below 420°C in a single step, simplifying the process and improving quality.

Contribution

It presents a novel single-step plasma-enhanced CVD process that reduces temperature and complexity for high-quality graphene synthesis.

Findings

Graphene films have sub-nanometre smoothness and excellent crystalline quality.

Room temperature electrical mobility of graphene reaches (6.0 ± 1.0) x 10^{4} cm^{2}V^{-1}s^{-1}.

High-quality graphene can be synthesized without elevated temperatures or crystalline substrates.

Abstract

Current methods of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of graphene on copper are complicated by multiple processing steps and by high temperatures required in both preparing the copper and inducing subsequent film growth. Here we demonstrate a plasma-enhanced CVD chemistry that enables the entire process to take place in a single step, at reduced temperatures (< 420 C), and in a matter of minutes. Growth on copper foils is found to nucleate from arrays of well-aligned domains, and the ensuing films possess sub-nanometre smoothness, excellent crystalline quality, low strain, few defects and room temperature electrical mobility up to (6.0 +- 1.0) x 10^{4} cm^{2}V^{-1}s^{-1}, better than that of large, single-crystalline graphene derived from thermal CVD growth. These results indicate that elevated temperatures and crystalline substrates are not necessary for synthesizing high-quality graphene.