Chemical vapor deposition synthesis of graphene on copper with methanol, ethanol, and propanol precursors

Large area, high quality graphene was synthesized from different liquid alcohols by chemical vapor deposition on copper foils in a tube furnace. The quality of the synthesized graphene was systematically investigated with various growth conditions. Alcohol vapor exposure times of 5 min and an average growth temperature of 850 °C yield continuous graphene monolayer films, as inferred from Raman spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy shows that the oxygen moieties found in the source molecules have no measureable doping or oxidation effect in the synthesized graphene. Raman spectroscopy indicates that graphene films transferred to insulating substrates are of high quality. The field effect mobility of large area graphene transistors was measured at room temperature to be in the range 1800–2100 cm2/V s at carrier densities between 1011/cm2 and 1012/cm2.