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Updated: Jan 11, 2026

Procedure for the Transfer of Polymer Films Onto Porous Substrates with Minimized Defects
Published on: June 22, 2019
Dry Transfer of CVD Graphene Film Using Adhesion Switchable Ferroelectric Polymers
Deqiang Zhang1,2, Jing Ying Yeo1, Hanning Zhang3
1Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117551, Singapore.
Abstract:
Although chemical vapor deposition (CVD) produces meter-scale, high-quality graphene (Gr) on copper (Cu) foils, its practical integration is hampered by challenges in the transfer process. Conventional wet transfers are slow, produce chemical waste, and lack scalability, whereas existing dry transfer methods struggle with mechanical damage and residues due to strong Gr-Cu adhesion and the difficulty in precisely tuning interfacial forces. Here, a fully dry, industrially compatible transfer platform utilizing a ferroelectric poly(vinylidene-fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) film with electrostatically switchable adhesion, serving as both a mechanical support and a transfer layer, is demonstrated. Negative Corona poling of P(VDF-TrFE) induces p-type doping in graphene. Density Functional Theory calculations confirm that this simultaneously reduces Gr-Cu adhesion while increasing P(VDF-TrFE)-Gr adhesion, enabling clean, large-scale graphene delamination from Cu foils with >99% coverage. Subsequent thermal annealing above P(VDF-TrFE)'s Curie temperature (≈135 °C) depolarizes the film, neutralizing the interfacial charge for a clean release. The versatility of this method is shown for other two-dimensional (2D) materials, including molybdenum disulfide and hexagonal boron nitride. Crucially, the process has been validated on cm-scale samples using a fully automated system with a transfer time of <5 min, highlighting a viable path toward industrial-scale production of high-quality 2D material films.

