Oxide-assisted growth of scalable single-crystalline graphene with seamlessly stitched millimeter-sized domains on commercial copper foils

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is considered as an effective route to obtain large-area and high-quality polycrystalline graphene; however, there are still technological challenges associated with its application to achieve single crystals of graphene. Herein, we present the CVD growth of scalable single-crystalline graphene by seamless stitching millimeter-sized unidirectional aligned hexagonal domains using different types of commercial Cu foils without repeated substrate polishing and H2-annealing processes. Compared with that reported in previous studies, herein, the average size for the hexagonal graphene domains is enlarged by 1-2 orders of magnitude (from tens of micrometers to millimeter). The key factor for growth is the Cu surface monocrystallization achieved by a pre-introduced oxide layer and the sequential Ar annealing. The graphene domains exhibit an average growth rate of >20 μm min-1 and a misorientation possibility of <2%, and seamless stitching at the domain coalescence interfaces is confirmed by atomic force microscopy measurements.