Hydrogen induced etching features of wrinkled graphene domains

Abstract

Wrinkles are observed commonly in CVD (chemical vapor deposition)-grown graphene on Cu and hydrogen etching is of significant interest to understand the growth details, as well as a practical tool for fabricating functional graphene nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate a special hydrogen etching phenomenon of wrinkled graphene domains. We investigated the wrinkling of graphene domains under fast cooling conditions and the results indicated that wrinkles in the monolayer area formed more easily compared to the multilayer area (≥two layers), and the boundary of the multilayer area tended to be a high density wrinkle zone in those graphene domains, with a small portion of multilayer area in the center. Due to the site-selective adsorption of atomic hydrogen on wrinkled regions, the boundary of the multilayer area became a new initial point for the etching process, aside from the domain edge and random defect sites, as reported before, leading to the separation of the monolayer and multilayer area over time. A schematic model was drawn to illustrate how the etching of wrinkled graphene was generated and propagated. This work may provide valuable guidance for the design and growth of nanostructures based on wrinkled graphene.