The growth of large-sized graphene domains by Faraday cage-assisted plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is considered one of the methods to synthesize graphene with the greatest development potential due to its advantages to operate in low temperatures with high efficiency. However, unlike thermal chemical vapor deposition (TCVD), graphene grown by PECVD usually has smaller grain size with higher nucleation density of graphene films, in which excessive grain boundaries would lead to unsatisfactory electric performance for practical applications. One of the challenges in preparing graphene by PECVD is to improve the quality of graphene by controlling the nucleation and growth of graphene. In this article, the optimal growth of graphene in a Faraday cage by PECVD was studied. The nucleation density and growth rate of graphene in PECVD were decreased significantly with a Faraday cage. Large-sized graphene grains(∼20 µm) were successfully synthesized on polycrystalline copper by rising the growth temperature in the Faraday cage, and showed high quality. Besides, the graphene grown in a Faraday cage exhibits an average current carrier mobility of 309.1 cm2V−1s−1 under room temperature.