Growth kinetics and uniform scaling-up of graphene synthesis

Chemical vapor deposition on copper is the most widely used method to synthesize graphene at large scale. However, the clear understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that govern this synthesis is lacking. Using a vertical-flow, cold-wall reactor with short gas residence time we observe the early growths to study the kinetics of chemical vapor deposition of graphene on copper foils and demonstrate uniform synthesis at wafer scale. Our results indicate that the growth is limited by the catalytic dissociative dehydrogenation on the surface and copper sublimation hinders the graphene growth. We report an activation energy of 3.1 eV for ethylene-based graphene synthesis.