Rapid Identification of the Layer Number of Large-Area Graphene on Copper

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on Cu foils emerged as an important method for preparing high-quality and large-area graphene films for practical applications. However, to date it remains challenging to rapidly identify the structural features, especially the layer numbers, of CVD-graphene directly on Cu substrate. Herein, we report an O-2-plasma-assisted approach for identifying the coverage, wrinkles, domain size, and layer number of large-area graphene films on Cu foils by optical microscopy. The wrinkles and grain boundaries of five-layer graphene can be observed with a grayscale increment of similar to 23.4% per one graphene layer after O-2-plasma treatment for only 15 s, which allows for checking graphene on Cu foils with a sample size of 17 cm x 20 cm in a few minutes. The Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy presents a strong layer number dependence of both the plasma induced graphene defects and Cu oxides, which, as indicated by molecular dynamic simulation, is responsible for the improved image contrast as a result of the interaction between O-ions and graphene with different layer numbers. We expect that this O-2-plasma-assisted method would be applied to meter-scale samples if atmospheric-pressure plasma is used and therefore will be beneficial for the fast evaluation of CVD-graphene in both laboratory and industry.

Chemistry of Materials