Growth of graphene from solid carbon sources
Zhengzong Sun1, Zheng Yan1, Jun Yao2, Elvira Beitler1, Yu Zhu1 & James M. Tour1,3
- Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
- Applied Physics Program, Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
- Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Correspondence to: James M. Tour1,3 Email: tour@rice.edu
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Abstract
Monolayer graphene was first obtained1 as a transferable material in 2004 and has stimulated intense activity among physicists, chemists and material scientists1, 2, 3, 4. Much research has been focused on developing routes for obtaining large sheets of monolayer or bilayer graphene. This has been recently achieved by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of CH4 or C2H2 gases on copper or nickel substrates5, 6, 7. But CVD is limited to the use of gaseous raw materials, making it difficult to apply the technology to a wider variety of potential feedstocks. Here we demonstrate that large area, high-quality graphene with controllable thickness can be grown from different solid carbon sources—such as polymer films or small molecules—deposited on a metal catalyst substrate at temperatures as low as 800 °C. Both pristine graphene and doped graphene were grown with this one-step process using the same experimental set-up.
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