IQIM Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Seminar

Abstract: Graphene, a crystalline, 2D allotrope of carbon, has received considerable attention for its remarkable electronic, chemical, and mechanical properties. A challenge for graphene-based technologies is achieving these properties on a large-scale. The highest quality graphene is derived by mechanical exfoliation of graphite, but samples are limited in size to only a few microns. Thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a scalable fabrication process that is widely used for producing graphene. However, CVD derived films have not been able to capture the quality of exfoliated graphene, and the CVD process  is complicated by multiple steps and the need for high temperatures (~1000 °C). An elevated processing temperature is problematic because it limits how graphene can be integrated into current electronic architectures, e.g. CMOS, as well as giving rise to film defects. Here, we demonstrate a new CVD process that enables graphene growth to occur in a single step, at reduced temperatures, and in a matter of minutes. This process results in graphene films that possess sub-nanometer smoothness, excellent crystalline quality, low strain and defects, and room-temperature electrical mobility comparable to large, single-crystal graphene. These results indicate that elevated temperatures and crystalline growth substrates are not necessary for the synthesis of high quality graphene.

Part 1:  An overview of current graphene fabrication methods will be presented followed by the development of our CVD approach starting with Robert Millikan.

Part 2: Details and results of the CVD technique will be presented.