Fast Transfer-free Synthesis of High-quality Monolayer Graphene on Insulating Substrates by Simple Rapid Thermal Treatment

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid, transfer-free method for synthesizing high-quality monolayer graphene directly on insulating substrates using a simple thermal process, enabling scalable device applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel rapid thermal treatment technique with a copper layer that acts as catalyst and filter, facilitating direct growth of monolayer graphene on SiO2/Si without transfer.

Findings

High carrier mobility up to 3000 cm2 V-1s-1 at room temperature

Successful observation of quantum oscillations

Large-area monolayer graphene achieved

Abstract

The transfer-free synthesis of high-quality, large-area graphene on a given dielectric substrate, which is highly desirable for device applications, remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we report on a simple rapid thermal treatment method for the fast and direct growth of high-quality, large-scale monolayer graphene on a SiO2/Si substrate from solid carbon sources. The stack structure of solid carbon layer/copper film/SiO2 is adopted in the RTT process. The inserted copper film does not only act as an active catalyst for the carbon precursor but also serves as a "filter" that prevents premature carbon dissolution, and thus, contributes to monolayer graphene growth on SiO2/Si. The produced monolayer graphene exhibits high carrier mobility of up to 3000 cm2 V-1s-1 at room temperature and standard half-integer quantum oscillations.