Superclean Growth of Graphene Using a Cold-Wall Chemical Vapor Deposition Approach

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2020 Sep 21;59(39):17214-17218. doi: 10.1002/anie.202005406. Epub 2020 Jul 29.

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has become a promising approach for the industrial production of graphene films with appealing controllability and uniformity. However, in the conventional hot-wall CVD system, CVD-derived graphene films suffer from surface contamination originating from the gas-phase reaction during the high-temperature growth. Shown here is that the cold-wall CVD system is capable of suppressing the gas-phase reaction, and achieves the superclean growth of graphene films in a controllable manner. The as-received superclean graphene film, exhibiting improved optical and electrical properties, was proven to be an ideal candidate material used as transparent electrodes and substrate for epitaxial growth. This study provides a new promising choice for industrial production of high-quality graphene films, and the finding about the engineering of the gas-phase reaction, which is usually overlooked, will be instructive for future research on CVD growth of graphene.

Keywords: ab-initio calculations; chemical vapor deposition; gas-phase reactions; graphene; structure elucidation.