Argon Assisted Growth of Epitaxial Graphene on Cu(111)

Abstract

The growth of graphene by catalytic decomposition of ethylene on Cu(111) in an ultra-high vacuum system was investigated with low energy electron diffraction, low energy electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Attempts to form a graphene overlayer using ethylene at pressures as high as 10 mTorr and substrate temperatures as high as 900 ${}^{\circ }$C resulted in almost no graphene growth. By using an argon overpressure, the growth of epitaxial graphene on Cu(111) was achieved. The suppression of graphene growth without the use of an argon overpressure is attributed to Cu sublimation at elevated temperatures. During the initial stages of growth, a random distribution of rounded graphene islands is observed. The predominant rotational orientation of the islands is within $\pm 1^{\circ }$ of the Cu(111) substrate lattice.

References in corpus (4)

• Ultrahigh electron mobility in suspended graphene
• Electronic transport in polycrystalline graphene
• Two Dimensional Ir-Cluster Lattices on Moiré of Graphene with Ir(111)
• High Quality, Transferable Graphene Grown on Single Crystal Cu(111) Thin Films on Basal-Plane Sapphire

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Oxidation-assisted graphene heteroepitaxy on copper foil
• Low-Energy Electron Reflectivity of Graphene on Copper and other Substrates
• Modeling of the self-limited growth in catalytic chemical vapor deposition of graphene
• Influence of Chemisorbed Oxygen on the Growth of Graphene on Cu(100) by Chemical Vapor Deposition