Copper acetate facilitated direct growth of w

This study is led by Prof. Zhongfan Liu (Center for Nanochemistry, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University), Prof. Jingyu Sun (College of Energy, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, Soochow University) and Prof. Wanlin Guo (State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Institute of Nanoscience, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics). They reported an effective approach that uses a metal-containing species, copper acetate, to continuously provide copper clusters in gaseous form to support transfer-free growth of graphene on wafer-scale insulators. As grown graphene films readily exhibited decreased multilayer density, improved electrical performance, and improved carrier mobility value. In addition, droplet-based hydrovoltaic power generators based on direct grown graphene have been found to have robust voltage output and long cycle stability, demonstrating their potential for emerging energy harvesting applications.

The direct synthesis of high quality graphene on dielectric substrates without a transfer process is of paramount importance for a variety of applications. Directly grown graphene films, however, tend to suffer from poor crystal quality, numerous structural defects and the simultaneous formation of multilayers, which leads to poor electrical / optical properties that hinder high-end applications. Current strategies for increasing high quality graph growth, such as: B. remote metal catalysis, are otherwise limited by poor performance with respect to the release of metal catalysts and therefore suffer from the problem of metal residues.

Here they reported an effective approach that uses a metal-containing species, copper acetate, to continuously provide copper clusters in gaseous form to support transfer-free growth of graphene on a wafer scale. Cu (OAc)₂ was subjected to volatilization using an independent heating system to enable delivery of Cu clusters. The derived Cu clusters enable effective decomposition of the CH_4th Precursor by reducing its activation energy, as illustrated by density functional theory calculations. The graphene films showed a carrier mobility of 8500 cm² V^-1 S.^-1.

As a proof-of-concept, they demonstrated the production of a hydrovoltaic power generator using graphene grown in this way. The as-built generator demonstrated superior voltage output and cycle stability compared to its transfer graph counterparts, which is promising for practical applications. The work presented here offers a promising solution to organize the metal catalytic booster for the transfer-free synthesis of high-quality graphene and to enable intelligent energy generation.

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See the article:

Copper acetate-assisted transfer-free growth of high-quality graphene for hydrovoltaic generators

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwab169

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