The Way towards Ultrafast Growth of Single-Crystal Graphene on Copper

The exceptional properties of graphene make it a promising candidate in the development of next-generation electronic, optoelectronic, photonic and photovoltaic devices. A holy grail in graphene research is the synthesis of large-sized single-crystal graphene, in which the absence of grain boundaries guarantees its excellent intrinsic properties and high performance in the devices. Nowadays, most attention has been drawn to the suppression of nucleation density by using low feeding gas during the growth process to allow only one nucleus to grow with enough space. However, because the nucleation is a random event and new nuclei are likely to form in the very long growth process, it is difficult to achieve industrial-level wafer-scale or beyond (e.g. 30 cm in diameter) single-crystal graphene. Another possible way to obtain large single-crystal graphene is to realize ultrafast growth, where once a nucleus forms, it grows up so quickly before new nuclei form. Therefore ultrafast growth provides a new direction for the synthesis of large single-crystal graphene, and is also of great significance to realize large-scale production of graphene films (fast growth is more time-efficient and cost-effective), which is likely to accelerate various graphene applications in industry.