Rapid direct growth of graphene on single-crystalline diamond using nickel as catalyst

Abstract

Although theoretical investigations indicate that the successful combination of graphene and diamond would give interesting properties, only a limited number of reports dealing with the subject have been published. Here, we present a rapid thermal process (RTP) which involves nickel (Ni) as metal catalyst for a direct growth of graphene on diamond at a temperature of 1073 K for 60 s. This process operates with a combination of a lower temperature and for a shorter duration than what has previously been reported. Thin Ni films of different thicknesses were deposited on top of (100) single-crystalline diamond. After RTP, the coverage of monolayer graphene was found to be around 20% shown by the intensity ratio between the 2D- and G-peak using Raman spectroscopy on 50 nm thick Ni films. In addition, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy analysis were conducted. For electrical characterization, Hall-effect measurements were performed at temperatures between 80 and 360 K.