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Different growth behaviors of ambient pressure chemical vapor deposition graphene on Ni(111) and Ni films: A scanning tunneling microscopy study

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Abstract

Graphene growth on the same metal substrate with different crystal morphologies, such as single crystalline and polycrystalline, may involve different mechanisms. We deal with this issue by preparing graphene on single crystal Ni(111) and on ∼300 nm thick Ni films on SiO2 using an ambient pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) method, and analyze the different growth behaviors for different growth parameters by atomically-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and complementary macroscopic analysis methods. Interestingly, we obtained monolayer graphene on Ni(111), and multilayer graphene on Ni films under the same growth conditions. Based on the experimental results, it is proposed that the graphene growth on Ni(111) is strongly templated by the Ni(111) lattice due to the strong Ni-C interactions, leading to monolayer graphene growth. Multilayer graphene flakes formed on polycrystalline Ni films are usually stacked with deviations from the Bernal stacking type and show small rotations among the carbon layers. Considering the different substrate features, the inevitable grain boundaries on polycrystalline Ni films are considered to serve as the growth fronts for bilayer and even multilayer graphene.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yanfeng Zhang

  2. Center for Nanochemistry (CNC), Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yanfeng Zhang, Teng Gao, Shubao Xie, Boya Dai, Lei Fu, Yabo Gao, Yubin Chen, Mengxi Liu & Zhongfan Liu

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  1. Yanfeng Zhang
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  2. Teng Gao
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  3. Shubao Xie
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  4. Boya Dai
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  9. Zhongfan Liu
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Correspondence to Yanfeng Zhang or Zhongfan Liu.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Zhang, Y., Gao, T., Xie, S. et al. Different growth behaviors of ambient pressure chemical vapor deposition graphene on Ni(111) and Ni films: A scanning tunneling microscopy study. Nano Res. 5, 402–411 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-012-0221-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-012-0221-6

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