High-quality graphene synthesis on amorphous SiC through a rapid thermal treatment

Abstract

Synthesizing high-quality graphene by catalytic transformation from amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC) through a rapid thermal treatment (RTT) method is reported. SiO2/Si substrates are coated by a-SiC films followed by Cu and Ni films deposited sequentially. The samples are then thermally annealed by RTT for the synthesis of high-quality graphene in only 3 min. The synergistic effect of Cu and Ni catalyst is observed. We conjecture that the inserted copper film acts not only as a catalyst or substrate for graphene growth but also as a barrier for carbon diffusion to facilitate the synthesis of monolayer graphene, while the nickel film acts as another catalyst and forms Cu-Ni alloy to lower the catalytic temperature. In this paper, we present a simple and time-saving way in preparation of high-quality graphene and put forward a brief theoretical model for the growth of graphene.