Synthesis of few-layered graphene by ion implantation of carbon in nickel thin films

Abstract

The synthesis of few-layered graphene is performed by ion implantation of carbon species inthin nickel films, followed by high temperature annealing and quenching. Although ionimplantation enables a precise control of the carbon content and of the uniformity of thein-plane carbon concentration in the Ni films before annealing, we observe thicknessnon-uniformities in the synthesized graphene layers after high temperature annealing.These non-uniformities are probably induced by the heterogeneous distribution/topographyof the graphene nucleation sites on the Ni surface. Taken altogether, our resultsindicate that the number of graphene layers on top of Ni films is controlled by thenucleation process on the Ni surface rather than by the carbon content in the Ni film.