Chemical Vapor Deposition of Graphene on a “Peeled-Off” Epitaxial Cu(111) Foil: A Simple Approach to Improved Properties

We present a simple approach to improving the quality of CVD grown graphene, exploiting a Cu(111) foil catalyst. The catalyst is epitaxially grown by evaporation on a single crystal sapphire substrate, thickened by electroplating, and peeled off. The exposed surface is atomically flat, easily reduced, and exclusively of (111) orientation. Graphene grown on this catalyst under atmospheric CVD conditions and without wet chemical prereduction produces single crystal domain sizes of several hundred micrometers in samples that are many centimeters in size. The graphene produced in this way can easily be transferred to other substrates using well-established techniques. We report mobilities extracted using field-effect (as high as 29 000 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)) and Hall bar measurement (up to 10 100 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)).