Uniform wafer-scale synthesis of graphene on evaporated Cu (111) film with quality comparable to exfoliated monolayer

Monolayer graphene has been grown on crystallized Cu (111) films on standard oxidized Si 100 mm wafers. The monolayer graphene demonstrates high uniformity (>97% coverage), with immeasurable defects (>95% defect-negligible) across the entire wafer. Key to these results is the phase transition of evaporated copper films from amorphous to crystalline at the growth temperature as corroborated by X-ray diffraction and electron backscatter diffraction. Noticeably, phase transition of copper film is observed on technologically ubiquitous oxidized Si wafer where the oxide is a standard amorphous thermal oxide. Ion mass spectroscopy indicates that the copper films can be purposely hydrogen-enriched during a hydrogen anneal which subsequently affords graphene growth with a sole carbonaceous precursor for low defect densities. Owing to the strong hexagonal lattice match, the graphene domains align to the Cu (111) domains, suggesting a pathway for increasing the graphene grains by maximizing the copper grain sizes. Fabricated graphene transistors on a flexible polyimide film yield a peak carrier mobility ~4,930 cm2/Vs.