Silane-catalysed fast growth of large single-crystalline graphene on hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract

The direct growth of high-quality, large single-crystalline domains of graphene on a dielectric substrate is of vital importance for applications in electronics and optoelectronics. Traditionally, graphene domains grown on dielectrics are typically only B1 mm with a growth rate of B1 nmmin similar to 1 or less, the main reason is the lack of a catalyst. Here we show that silane, serving as a gaseous catalyst, is able to boost the graphene growth rate to B1 mm min similar to 1, thereby promoting graphene domains up to 20 mm in size to be synthesized via chemical vapour deposition (CVD) on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). Hall measurements show that the mobility of the sample reaches 20,000 cm(2)V(-1) s(-1) at room temperature, which is among the best for CVD-grown graphene. Combining the advantages of both catalytic CVD and the ultra-flat dielectric substrate, gaseous catalyst-assisted CVD paves the way for synthesizing high-quality graphene for device applications while avoiding the transfer process.