Experimental investigation of metallic thin film modification of nickel substrates for chemical vapor deposition growth of single layer graphene at low temperature

Lowering the growth temperature of single layer graphene by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is important for its real-life application and mass production. Doing this without compromising quality requires advances in catalytic substrates. It is shown in this work that deposition of Zn and Bi metals modify the surface of nickel suppressing the uncontrollable growth of multiple layers of graphene. As a result, single layer graphene is obtained by CVD at 600 °C with minimum amount of defects, showing substantial improvement over bare Ni. In contrast, Cu, and Mo suppress graphene growth. We also show that graphene grown with our method has a defect density that is strongly dependent on the roughness of the original nickel foil. Good quality or highly defective holey single layer graphene can be grown at will by selecting a smooth or rough foil substrate respectively.