title: Engineering polycrystalline Ni films to improve thickness uniformity of the chemical-vapor-deposition-grown graphene films.
abstract: It has been shown that few-layer graphene films can be grown by atmospheric chemical vapor deposition using deposited Ni thin films on SiO(2)/Si substrates. In this paper we report the correlation between the thickness variations of the graphene film with the grain size of the Ni film. Further investigations were carried out to increase the grain size of a polycrystalline nickel film. It was found that the minimization of the internal stress not only promotes the growth of the grains with (111) orientation in the Ni film, but it also increases their grain size. Different types of SiO(2) substrates also affect the grain size development. Based upon these observations, an annealing method was used to promote large grain growth while maintaining the continuity of the nickel film. Graphene films grown from Ni films with large versus small grains were compared for confirmation.
authors: Institut für Physik and Institut für Mikro- und Nanotechnologien, Technische Universität Ilmenau, D-98684 Ilmenau, Germany.
authors: Stefan
authors: S
authors: Thiele
authors: Alfonso
authors: A
authors: Reina
authors: Paul
authors: P
authors: Healey
authors: Jakub
authors: J
authors: Kedzierski
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Wyatt
authors: Pei-Lan
authors: PL
authors: Hsu
authors: Craig
authors: C
authors: Keast
authors: Juergen
authors: J
authors: Schaefer
authors: Jing
authors: J
authors: Kong