Control of the nucleation and quality of graphene grown by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition with acetylene

Although many studies have reported the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of large-area monolayer graphene from methane, synthesis of graphene using acetylene as the source gas has not been fully explored. In this study, the low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) growth of graphene from acetylene was systematically investigated. We succeeded in regulating the domain size, defects density, layer number and the sheet resistance of graphene by changing the acetylene flow rates. Scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy were employed to confirm the layer number, uniformity and quality of the graphene films. It is found that a low flow rate of acetylene (0.28 sccm) is required to form high-quality monolayer graphene in our system. On the other hand, the high acetylene flow rate (7 sccm) will induce the growth of the bilayer graphene domains with high defects density. On the basis of selected area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern, the as-grown monolayer graphene domains were analyzed to be polycrystal. We also discussed the relation between the sheet resistacne and defects density in graphene. Our results provide great insights into the understanding of the CVD growth of monolayer and bilayer graphene from acetylene.