Three step fabrication of graphene at low temperature by remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

In this report, we systematically studied low temperature fabrication of graphene from precursors containing cyclobenzene groups by remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. A new three-step growth procedure was developed with good control of the nucleation, domain growth and domain connection stages. Based on this growth procedure, high quality continuous graphene films could be obtained using naphthalene as the graphene precursor at temperatures lower than 600 °C. A transmittance of ∼96.4% and continuous optical images confirmed the successful fabrication of uniform single-layer graphene films with desirable quality at temperatures lower than 400 °C. Carrier mobility of graphene synthesized at 400 °C reached ∼682 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, indicating the samples are of reasonable quality. Low temperature graphene synthesis may pave the way for low cost large scale graphene fabrication, and for production of flexible substrates, especially polymer substrates.