Graphene synthesis and characterization on copper

Graphene, two dimensional sheet of carbon atoms has recently gained attention as some of its properties are promising for electronics applications e.g. higher mobility that translates to higher operating frequency for devices geared towards radio frequency applications. Excellent optical transmittance combined with its semi metallic behavior makes it an important material for transparent contacts in solar cells. To bring graphene to the production level, synthesis methods are needed for its growth on wafer scale. It has been shown that chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is one of the techniques that can potentially synthesize wafer scale graphene. Recently copper has gained popularity as an important substrate material for graphene growth due to its lower carbon solubility, which allows better control over number of graphene layers. Here we report optimization of graphene growth on copper foils with our home made atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) setup. Graphene growth on copper under APCVD was non self-limiting similar to other reports. It was found that apart from growth parameters surface texture plays a very important role in graphene growth. In fact, few layer and bilayer graphene were obtained on the regions where copper surface was not uniform, confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. To improve copper surface texture thin layer of copper film was evaporated by electron beam evaporation before the graphene growth process. After this modification, monolayer graphene was obtained on areas as large as 300 um × 300 um confirmed by Raman area maps. Graphene transfer procedure was also optimized so that graphene on metal surface could be transferred to insulating substrate