Nanodiamond as the carbon source for precipitation of multilayer graphene on a Si substrate

Abstract

Abstract Nanodiamond was used to directly precipitate graphene at the interface between Ni catalyst and Si substrate. Consequently, multilayer graphene was successfully precipitated without using a capping layer. The critical temperature for the precipitation was found to be as low as 370 °C, more than 100 °C lower than for of the conventional amorphous carbon case. The annealing temperature of 900 °C offers high-quality graphene with a low D/G ratio of 0.06. The nanodiamond contributes to the increased carbon concentration in the catalyst, leading to both graphene nucleation at the interface and a very low critical temperature.