Repeated growth-etching-regrowth for large-area defect-free single-crystal graphene by chemical vapor deposition.

Ma, Teng; Ren, Wencai; Liu, Zhibo; Huang, Le; Ma, Lai-Peng; Ma, Xiuliang; Zhang, Zhiyong; Peng, Lian-Mao et al. · ACS Nano · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Reducing nucleation density and healing structural defects are two challenges for fabricating large-area high-quality single-crystal graphene, which is essential for its electronic and optoelectronic applications. We have developed a method involving chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth followed by repeated etching-regrowth, to solve both problems at once. Using this method, we can obtain single-crystal graphene domains with a size much larger than that allowed by the nucleation density in the initial growth and efficiently heal structural defects similar to graphitization but at a much lower temperature, both of which are impossible to realize by conventional CVD. Using this method with Pt as a growth substrate, we have grown ∼3 mm defect-free single-crystal graphene domains with a carrier mobility up to 13,000 cm2 V(-1) s(-1) under ambient conditions.