The effect of annealing temperature and time on synthesis of graphene thin films by rapid thermal annealing

• Graphene thin films were synthesized by RTA method.
• Spectroscopic graphite was used as a carbon source for graphene synthesis.
• Number of graphene layers increases with the increase of annealing temperatures.
• Quality of graphene thin films increases with prolongation of annealing time.

In this paper, we performed synthesis of graphene thin films by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) of thin nickel–copper (Ni/Cu) layers deposited on spectroscopic graphite as a carbon source. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of annealing temperature and annealing time on formation and quality of synthesized graphene films. Raman spectroscopy study showed that annealing at lower temperatures results in formation of monolayer graphene films, while annealing at higher temperatures results in formation of multilayer graphene films. We used Raman mapping to determine the distribution of graphene sheets. Surface morphology of graphene thin films was investigated by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy with EDS probe.

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