Growth of graphene from solid amorphous carbon: A new geometry for control carbon diffusion barrier

Abstract

As an alternative strategy to fabricate high-quality graphene over a large area, metal catalysis has been attempted at elevated temperatures with solid carbon sources. However, graphene was generally fabricated on the surface of metal catalysis layer using amorphous carbon as solid carbon sources. In this study, a thin Al2O3 barrier (1 nm) deposited on an amorphous-C/Ni bilayer stack is demonstrated to enable direct growth of few layer graphene (FLG) identified as 3–4 layers on substrate surface at 700 °C and 800 °C. Moreover, the obtained graphene shows a good transmittance (93%) under the light source of 550 nm. The findings provide a way to directly synthesis FLG on the required substrate at low temperature, which may dramatically broaden the applications range of graphene.