Rapid direct growth of graphene on single-crystalline diamond using nickel as catalyst
Nattakarn Suntornwipat, Aisuluu Aitkulova, Viktor Djurberg, Saman Majdi
Abstract
Although theoretical investigations indicate that the successful combination of graphene and diamond would give interesting properties, only a limited number of reports dealing with the subject have been published. Here, we present a rapid thermal process (RTP) which involves nickel (Ni) as metal catalyst for a direct growth of graphene on diamond at a temperature of 1073 K for 60 s. This process operates with a combination of a lower temperature and for a shorter duration than what has previously been reported. Thin Ni films of different thicknesses were deposited on top of (100) single-crystalline diamond. After RTP, the coverage of monolayer graphene was found to be around 20% shown by the intensity ratio between the 2D- and G-peak using Raman spectroscopy on 50 nm thick Ni films. In addition, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy analysis were conducted. For electrical characterization, Hall-effect measurements were performed at temperatures between 80 and 360 K.