Graphene film coated metals

As a one-atom-thick two-dimensional planar sheet of sp²-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice, graphene has been a subject of extensive academic and commercial interest since its discovery in 2004, for potential applications in the fields of materials science, chemistry, physics and engineering due to its outstanding electronic, photonic, thermal and mechanical performances. For instance, graphene could be used as an exceptional anticorrosion coating (diffusion barrier) and conducting film. There are several ways to prepare graphene, e.g. mechanical exfoliation of graphite, exfoliation, chemical oxidation-reduction, epitaxial growth on SiC and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) approaches. Among others, CVD is the best method to produce continuous large-area and high-quality graphene layers. However, the bottleneck is the high processing temperature and the necessary transfer step onto desired substrates for the fabrication of devices. Needless to say that the high growth temperatures impose severe limitations on the choice of substrates and the subsequent transferability of as-grown layers influences device performance due to possibilities of damaging graphene planar structures and introducing impurities. In this PhD project, a low-temperature and transfer-free approach will be explored to directly deposit large area graphene films in a controlled manner on metallic substrates. The key objective of this project is to scrutinize the formation mechanism of graphene layers at low temperatures and the behavior of graphene coated metals in various applications.

Project leader & first supervisor

Prof. Dr. Yutao Pei

PhD student

L.Q. Lu

Second supervisor

Prof. Dr. Jeff Th. M. De Hosson