posted on 2014-07-03, 00:00authored byHai-Bin Sun, Jun Wu, Yan Han, Jun-Yong Wang, Feng-Qi Song, Jian-Guo Wan
Since the discovery of Cu-catalyzed
chemical vapor deposition (CVD),
the preparation of large-area graphene films has been performed by
the carbon precursor exposure under isothermal conditions. In this
work, we report on a nonisothermal method to quickly synthesize the
large-area AB-stacked bilayer graphene films (BGF) by atmospheric
pressure CVD on the copper foils. The growth feature of the BGF is
carefully studied by scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy,
and transmission electron microscopy. The results show that both cooling
rate and CH4 flow rate play crucial roles on the BGF growth
in the nonisothermal process. A phase diagram for the preparation
of BGF is thereby derived from plenty of experiments. In addition,
we find that bilayer graphene seeds grow into graphene islands at
the initial growth stage and extend gradually to a continuous film.
Accordingly, a possible growth mechanism combining with surface-catalyzed
process and seed growth is proposed.