Chemical Vapor Deposition Growth and Density Functional Theory Calculations of Trilayer Graphene

Abstract: Density functional theory was employed to investigate the energetics of ABA, ABC, and intermediary stacked phases for both pristine and s-triazine functionalized graphene trilayers. The energy of the ABC-stacked phase relative to the pristine ABA-stacked ground state showed a 94% increase when s-triazine was adsorbed to the graphene surface, confirming previous studies of the ability of s-triazine to facilitate the ABC to ABA phase-transition. This work is outlined in an enclosed publication titled “Trilayer Graphene as a Candidate Material for Phase Change Memory Applications.” Subsequently, low-pressure CVD was used to synthesize single-crystal graphene trilayers of up to 200 µm, the largest reported thus far. The defect density, stacking density, and morphology of the CVD-grown graphene trilayers are evaluated using Raman spectroscopy. The layers are also shown to be directly discernable as-grown on copper substrates using dark-field optical microscopy even without contrast oxidation of the copper film, representing a quick and reliable method for their identification. Slow-etching of the graphene yielded well-aligned, hexagonal domains further indicating the high-quality, single-crystalline of the graphene.