CVD Growth of High-quality Graphene and Visualization of the Growth Process

Abstract

We introduce our chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of high-quality monolayer and bilayer graphene on epitaxial metal catalysts. An epitaxial Cu(111) film prepared on sapphire substrate allows the synthesis of monolayer graphene whose orientation is registered by the underlying Cu(111) lattice. Pure AB-stacked bilayer graphene was synthesized by long-time CVD, and the bilayer device showed high on-off ratio indicating the band gap opening. Moreover, interlayer 2D nanospace of the bilayer graphene was used to intercalate metal chloride molecules, and the significant reduction of sheet resistance as well as the unique 2D super-structures of metal chloride molecules is observed. We also visualized the graphene CVD process based on radiation-mode optical microscopy (Rad-OM), obtaining important insight into the graphene growth mechanism.