On the Role of Water Vapor and Process Gasses in Low-Temperature Gold-Catalyzed Graphene Etching

The ability to pattern graphene at low temperatures in a scalable manner is one of the greatest challenges facing graphene industrial adoption today. We demonstrate a simple method for low-temperature gold-catalyzed etching of graphite with predictable characteristics using ambient air at \(350-375^...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2018-04
Main Authors: Carroll, Ian, Klowden, Tanya, Alvarez, Isabel, Postma, Henk W Ch
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystallography
Etching
Gold
Graphene
Graphite
Process parameters
Temperature
Water vapor
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Summary:The ability to pattern graphene at low temperatures in a scalable manner is one of the greatest challenges facing graphene industrial adoption today. We demonstrate a simple method for low-temperature gold-catalyzed etching of graphite with predictable characteristics using ambient air at \(350-375^\circ\) C. The naturally occurring water vapor in ambient air is necessary for this reaction to occur. In addition, we characterize the etch characteristics as a function of process parameters. Ar annealing is required to obtain crystallographically straight etches, and \(375^\circ\) C is required to obtain single-layer deep etching. We anticipate that this work can be adapted by future research to precisely control the shape of the etched areas, allowing for the simple low-temperature creation of nanoscale graphite features, and ultimately can be applied to single-layer graphene sheets for integrated device fabrication.
ISSN:2331-8422