Graphene deposit in direct current abnormal glow discharge

Abstract

With the advent of nanotechnology, graphene has gained relevance in the last two decades, due to its exceptional mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. This material being one of the thinnest existing, has at the same time great mechanical strength, flexibility, is transparent, in addition to very good conductor of electricity, much better than copper or any other known material. These properties are due to its structure constituted by a flat monoatomic sheet of carbon atoms arranged cyclically with the same structure of benzene. Several layers (>10) of superimposed graphene constitute the well-known graphite structure. To obtain it, among other methods, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition has been used, which uses electric discharges in the radiofrequency regime. In this work, the formation of graphene in the plasma of the abnormal glow discharge of direct current is reported. For this purpose, a mixture of 60% Ar, 5% C2H2 and 35% H2 is used as gas atmosphere, at a pressure of 2.0 torr. Electrolytic copper sheets were used as substrate. Temperature of the process was 600 °C and the formation time was 5 s. Deposits characterization was made by infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy.