Chemical vapor deposition of graphene on platinum: Growth and substrate interaction

Abstract

Low-pressure chemical vapor deposition of graphene has been investigated on various Pt substrates such as e-beam deposited films, sputtered films, and polycrystalline foils. High temperature sputtering is found to be crucial in growing single layer graphene on Pt. It gives highly (111)-oriented crystallization with a significant reduction of dewetting in Pt films, in contrast to e-beam deposited Pt films. Graphene grown on high temperature sputtered Pt films is free of micro-sized multilayer graphene islands normally observed in graphene grown on polycrystalline Pt foils. This indicates that using Pt thin films can effectively suppress the multilayer graphene growth by carbon segregations and precipitations from the Pt bulk. Growth of single layer graphene is demonstrated on Pt films with a thickness down to 25 nm. Effects of the Pt substrates on the as-grown graphene have been investigated. An XY plot of the Raman G and 2D bands in graphene shows a correlation with the surface facet orientations of the Pt substrates measured by electron backscatter diffraction. With a general red shift of the G band distributions, a blue shift of the 2D band distributions is observed, which goes as high as ∼2750 cm−1 in graphene grown on Pt (111) films. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd