We propose an innovative, easy-to-implement approach to synthesize large-area singlecrystalline graphene sheets by chemical vapor deposition on copper foil. This method doubly takes advantage of residual oxygen present in the gas phase. First, by slightly oxidizing the copper surface, we induce grain boundary pinning in copper and, in consequence, the freezing of the thermal recrystallization process. Subsequent reduction of copper under hydrogen suddenly unlocks the delayed reconstruction, favoring the growth of centimeter-sized copper (111) grains through the mechanism of abnormal grain growth. Second, the oxidation of the copper surface also drastically reduces the nucleation density of graphene. This oxidation/reduction sequence leads to the synthesis of aligned millimeter-sized monolayer graphene domains in epitaxial registry with copper (111). The as-grown graphene flakes are demonstrated to be both single-crystalline and of high quality.
@article{arxiv.1609.02761,
title = {Oxidation-assisted graphene heteroepitaxy on copper foil},
author = {Nicolas Reckinger and Xiaohui Tang and Frédéric Joucken and Luc Lajaunie and Raul Arenal and Emmanuel Dubois and Benoît Hackens and Luc Henrard and Jean-François Colomer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.02761},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
Main text (18 pages, 6 figures) + supplementary information (26 pages, 15 figures)