Continuous graphene films synthesized at low temperatures by introducing coronene as nucleation seeds

Abstract

In this paper, we systematically studied the effects of coronene as nucleation seeds for graphene synthesis at low temperatures by chemical vapor deposition. Naphthalene was used as a solid carbon source which is capable of producing graphene at temperatures down to 300 °C. The experimental results showed clear evidence that coronene seeds work as preferred nucleation sites, through which the nucleation density and graphene domain size could be modulated. The introduction of the seeds greatly improved the homogeneity of monolayer graphene by suppressing uncontrolled nucleation and multilayer growth of graphene domains. The obtained carrier mobility of graphene fabricated at 400 °C by the seed-assisted process reached ∼912 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, which is considerably higher than that of ∼300 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ measured on graphene prepared without seeding. Besides offering cost advantages for large scale application, the technique proposed in this study may find significant applications in graphene/copper hybrid interconnects and graphene based flexible electronics.