Metre-Sized Single-Crystal Graphene on Industrial Cu Foils

Growth of single-crystal graphene (SCG) is the prerequisite of the high-end applications of graphene. However, state-of-the-art technique can only achieve inch-size SCG, far away from the real industrialization demand. In this talk the synthesis of a graphene film of (5×50) cm² dimension with >99% ultra-highly oriented domains was presented [1]. We first transformed industrial polycrystalline Cu foils into single-crystal Cu(111) by thermal annealing using a temperature gradient driving technique. Then graphene domains were epitaxially grown on the Cu(111) substrate and seamlessly merged together to form a large SCG films. Combined with our ultrafast graphene growth technique [2], the graphene growth rate and the individual graphene domain size were increased obviously. Also, oxygen released from the oxide substrate at high temperature was helpful to further improve the domain alignment, which would greatly promote the quality of graphene films. This technique is very likely to be scaled up to achieve exceptionally large and high-quality graphene films, and thus realize various industrial-level applications at a low cost.
Reference:
[1] Science Bulletin 62, 1074 (2017).
[2] Nature Nanotechnology 11, 930 (2016).