Advances in the CVD growth of graphene for electronics applications

Abstract

Graphene, a monoatomic sheet of graphite, has recently received significant attention because of its potential impact in a wide variety of research areas. This thesis presents progress on improving the quality of graphene for electronics applications. An analysis tool was developed that provides a fast and scalable way to reveal the defectiveness of CVD grown graphene. This approach relies on a graphene passivated etching process that was found to be sensitive to structural defects in the graphene film. A strong correlation between the density of structural defects and the electron mobility emphasizes their importance for high quality graphene devices. The dimensions of graphene defects were found to be nanometer-sized and it was demonstrated that the defects exhibit novel fluid dynamical properties. The graphene synthesis process was investigated using the described analysis tool and the kinetics of graphene formation was revealed. The influence of promoters on the growth process was described and analyzed. The new insight into the growth process was applied to a novel approach to directly synthesize graphene patterns by catalyst passivation. Several advantages of this method over existing fabrication schemes were described and a number of applications based on these improvements were shown.