Nitrogen and boron doped monolayer graphene by chemical vapor deposition using polystyrene, urea and boric acid

Abstract

Chemical doping with foreign atoms is an effective method to intrinsically modify the properties of the host materials. In this paper, we report a facile strategy to prepare nitrogen and boron doped monolayer graphene by using urea and boric acid as solid precursors. By adjusting the elemental precursors, the nitrogen content could be modulated from 0.9 to 4.8% for nitrogen doped graphene and the boron content from 0.7 to 4.3% for boron doped graphene respectively, as estimated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The mobilities of the nitrogen and boron doped graphene-based back-gate field-effect transistors are about 350–550 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and 450–650 cm² V ⁻¹ s⁻¹ respectively. Our results are better than plasma treated nitrogen and boron doped graphene. Therefore the synthesis of nitrogen and boron doped graphene sheets by a solid doping elemental precursor method is considered to be an efficient approach to producing graphene with excellent optical and electrical performances at relatively low cost.