Sustained and Controlled Release of Volatile Precursors for Chemical Vapor Deposition of Graphene at Atmospheric Pressure

Abstract

Precursors and catalysts play vital roles in chemical reactions. Considerable efforts have been devoted to the investigation of catalysts for graphene growth by chemical vapor deposition in recent years. However, there has been little research on precursors because of a lack of innovation in term of creating a controllable feeding method. Herein, we present a novel sustained and controlled release approach, and develop a convenient, safe, and potentially scalable feeding system with the assistance of matrix materials and a simple portable feeder. As a result, a highly volatile liquid precursor can be fed accurately to grow large‐area, uniform graphene films with optimal properties. This feeding approach will further benefit the synthesis of other two‐dimensional materials from various precursors.

Asymmetric Growth of Monolayer Graphene on Cu Foil by Space‐Confined CVD

“…The graphene growth method reported in our previous paper, which employs liquid oxygen-containing small molecule acetone as the carbon source, is used. [7] This method not only improves the quality of graphene but also prepares monolayer graphene under atmospheric pressure, which effectively reduces the evaporation of Cu substrates during growth. In addition, a temperature control system is added to improve the controllability of the feed of carbon source.…”

“…[3][4][5] As a result, CVD is identified as the most competitive way in scalable industrial preparation of high-quality large-area monolayer graphene. [6] However, the quality and morphology uniformity of graphene products are sensitive to various experimental conditions, [7] and the batch preparation is even more uncontrollable. The performance of CVD-grown graphene is challenged by many engineering factors, [3,8,9] Among them, inspired by the influence of kinetics on CVD-grown graphene, the geometry and placement of Cu substrate in the furnace has received great attention.…”

High-quality bilayer graphene grown on softened copper foils by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition

“…In addition, due to the oxidation of Cu foil during the heating by residual oxidative species in AP-CVD system [36][37][38], the oxygen released from copper oxides also participates in the synthetic processes and generates huge impacts on the graphene synthesis. Besides, the oxygen atoms in carbon source (acetone) are non-negligible, which might facilitate the crystallization of BLG [26,27]. Schematic illustration of the proposed mechanism of BLG growth is displayed in Fig.…”

“…The synthesis process was carried out in a thermal CVD furnace with a quartz tube (170 cm in length, 5 cm in diameter) at atmospheric pressure [26,27]. The quartz tube was sealed by two flanges to maintain the reactive atmosphere and avoid contamination.…”

“…Acetone (99.5%, Peking Reagent) was used as the carbon source. The acetone was accurately fed to the CVD system with a sustained and controlled release approach, as described in our previous study [27]. A 4×4 cm 2 Cu foil was placed at the center reaction zone on a semicircular quartz carrier (see Fig.…”