Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Sheets Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition: Synthesis and Influence of Nitrogen Impurities on Carrier Transport

Abstract

A significant advance toward achieving practical applications of graphene as a two-dimensional material in nanoelectronics would be provided by successful synthesis of both n-type and p-type doped graphene. However, reliable doping and a thorough understanding of carrier transport in the presence of charged impurities governed by ionized donors or acceptors in the graphene lattice are still lacking. Here we report experimental realization of few-layer nitrogen-doped (N-doped) graphene sheets by chemical vapor deposition of organic molecule 1,3,5-triazine on Cu metal catalyst. When reducing the growth temperature, the atomic percentage of nitrogen doping is raised from 2.1% to 5.6%. With increasing doping concentration, N-doped graphene sheet exhibits a crossover from p-type to n-type behavior accompanied by a strong enhancement of electron-hole transport asymmetry, manifesting the influence of incorporated nitrogen impurities. In addition, by analyzing the data of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and electrical measurements, we show that pyridinic and pyrrolic N impurities play an important role in determining the transport behavior of carriers in our N-doped graphene sheets.

Surface modification of graphene and graphite by nitrogen plasma: Determination of chemical state alterations and assignments by quantitative X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

“…Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using N-containing carbon source, e.g., 1,3,5-triazine or pyridine, is a solvent-free technique, but scaling up is not straightforward [22,23]. It was found that samples prepared by CVD contain segregated domains of nitrogen dopants in the same sublattice.…”

Nitrogen doped epitaxial graphene on 4H-SiC(0001) – Experimental and theoretical study

“…Nitrogen-doped graphene may be formed either during [2,8,[17][18][19] or after graphene growth [20,21]. Previous research has shown that the introduction of nitrogen after the graphene growth process leads to the formation of the graphitic-N, pyrrolic-N and pyridinic-N configurations, while the introduction of nitrogen during the growth process may favor the creation of graphitic-N dopants [12,22].…”

Recent advances in electrochemical biosensing schemes using graphene and graphene-based nanocomposites

“…Of notice is the preparation of few-layer nitrogen-doped (N-doped) graphene sheets by CVD of organic molecule 1,3,5-triazine on Cu metal catalyst. By reducing the growth temperature, the atomic percentage of nitrogen doping is up to 5.6% [49]. The graphene film has limited use if the metal catalyst substrate is not removed and a subsequent process is needed to transfer CVD graphene onto suitable substrates.…”