Journal
PHYSICS LETTERS A
Volume 379, Issue 20-21, Pages 1361-1365Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.physleta.2015.03.009
Keywords
Graphene growth; First-principles calculations; Cu-Ni alloy; Nucleation
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [11247012, 11174070, 11304084]
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Catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on transition metals is a promising and versatile technique for graphene (and graphene film) growth. Recently, substrate alloying has been used to improve graphene synthesis by CVD. However, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. In this work, taking the Cu-Ni alloy surface as an example, we study the mechanism of carbon nucleation on the alloy surface in the initial stages using first-principles calculations. The energetics and kinetics of C-dimer formation are considered. Our calculations reveal that substrate alloying may strongly affect the carbon dimerization in CVD synthesis. Both the adsorption strength of C species and the dimerization barriers vary with the alloy composition. In addition, carbon migration, an important step in graphene growth, can also be controlled by alloying. Our findings may provide an understanding of the mechanisms by which alloying controls graphene (and graphene film) growth in CVD. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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