Effects of Alloying 30 at. % Ni using a Cu Catalyst on the Growth of Bilayer Graphene

A small percentage graphene bilayer where the first layer was fully covered with a graphene sheet was grown on alloy foils via an inductively coupled plasma-chemical vapor deposition chamber. Compared with Cu foils, the alloy foils led to faster growth of the graphene film, while maintaining the same quality, homogeneity, and thickness uniformity over the whole area synthesized as the growth characteristics of a monolayer graphene grown on Cu. Moreover, the combined catalyst had a graphene film simultaneously grown with a metallic compound of magnesium silicate in some regions and of 200 nm Cu2.4S in other regions. Nevertheless, graphene was grown continuously and highly homogenously over the entire large area synthesized without boundaries between regions. Thus the resulting graphene growth is affected primarily by the Cu catalyst and partly by the Ni and that the quality of the graphene is dependent on the Cu catalyst.