title: Fast growth of inch-sized single-crystalline graphene from a controlled single nucleus on Cu-Ni alloys.
abstract: Wafer-scale single-crystalline graphene monolayers are highly sought after as an ideal platform for electronic and other applications. At present, state-of-the-art growth methods based on chemical vapour deposition allow the synthesis of one-centimetre-sized single-crystalline graphene domains in ∼12 h, by suppressing nucleation events on the growth substrate. Here we demonstrate an efficient strategy for achieving large-area single-crystalline graphene by letting a single nucleus evolve into a monolayer at a fast rate. By locally feeding carbon precursors to a desired position of a substrate composed of an optimized Cu-Ni alloy, we synthesized an ∼1.5-inch-large graphene monolayer in 2.5 h. Localized feeding induces the formation of a single nucleus on the entire substrate, and the optimized alloy activates an isothermal segregation mechanism that greatly expedites the growth rate. This approach may also prove effective for the synthesis of wafer-scale single-crystalline monolayers of other two-dimensional materials.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.
authors.forename: Tianru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.
authors.forename: Xuefu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Minhang, Shanghai 200241, China.
authors.forename: Qinghong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Ingram School of Engineering, and MSEC, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas 78666, USA.
authors.forename: Jiachen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Guangyuan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Ingram School of Engineering, and MSEC, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas 78666, USA.
authors.forename: Zhihong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.
authors.forename: Huishan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.
authors.forename: Haomin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Textiles and Clothing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Ingram School of Engineering, and MSEC, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas 78666, USA.
authors.forename: Qingkai
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.|School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, 319 Yueyang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 865 Changning Road, Shanghai 200050, China.|School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, 319 Yueyang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Mianheng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang