An Improved CVD Design for Graphene Growth and Transfer Improvements

Contamination-free graphene presents vast potential in diverse energy applications, encompassing storage, conversion, harvesting, and catalysis. Ongoing endeavors to ensure graphene’s purity are poised to unlock fresh prospects for advancing sustainable and efficient energy technologies. Despite the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method’s promise in delivering large-area, high-crystallinity graphene with unique properties, industrial-scale production remains a challenge. Issues surrounding the uniformity and reproducibility of graphene films persist, particularly when synthesized in quartz furnaces, leading to unintended particle contamination that alters growth processes and graphene properties. This study delves into the formation and origins of these contaminants during growth. The authors propose modifying quartz furnace layouts to mitigate sample contamination and achieve clean, uniform graphene films across large areas. Evaluation using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectrometry elucidated the characteristics of both as-grown and transferred graphene films.