High-throughput graphene imaging on arbitrary substrates with widefield Raman spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Spectroscopy
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Raman spectroscopy is crucial for studying graphene and sp(2)-bonded carbon materials.
• Conventional micro-Raman spectroscopy suffers from low throughput, limiting imaging capabilities.
• Characterizing graphene on various substrates and large scales is challenging with existing methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To apply widefield Raman imaging (WRI) for high-throughput graphene film characterization.
• To demonstrate WRI's capability to image graphene orders of magnitude faster than micro-Raman.
• To showcase WRI's advantages for studying graphene on diverse substrates and dynamic processes.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of widefield Raman imaging (WRI) for graphene analysis.
• Comparative analysis of WRI throughput versus conventional micro-Raman imaging.
• Application of WRI for imaging graphene on copper, silicon, and suspended samples.

Main Results:

• WRI achieves significantly higher imaging throughput for graphene compared to micro-Raman.
• Detailed spectral information is retained with WRI, enabling comprehensive sample analysis.
• WRI facilitates large-scale defect distribution studies in chemical vapor deposition (CVD) graphene.

Conclusions:

• Widefield Raman imaging (WRI) offers a powerful, high-throughput alternative for graphene characterization.
• WRI overcomes the speed limitations of micro-Raman spectroscopy for graphene imaging.
• This technique enables previously challenging studies, including real-time imaging of dynamic graphene processes.