Hexagonal lattice of Cu (111) (crystal plane) favors the high quality of CVD grown Graphene. Graphene have preffered orientations and similar crystallographic geometry as that of the underlying Cu(111). It is observed that graphene prefers nucleation on Cu(111) crystal plane than other planes present in polycrystalline Cu substrate.
Hello Mukesh,
It depends which type of Cu substrate you choose. If it is a foil then you cannot choose the Cu surface orientation, but if you choose to start from thin films then it is possible to get well oriented Cu. See for example Article High Quality, Transferable Graphene Grown on Single Crystal ...
Hello Mukesh,
what is the size of the substrate that you want to use? It is possible to buy Cu(111) single-crystal discs, with about 10 mm diameter. The price might be around 500-600 Euros, depending on the supplier and on your specific requirements.
Hi Mukesh,
The best way to have a single crystalline Cu(111) film consists of depositing Cu on a C-plane sapphire wafer. See paper:
"Role of the Cu substrate in the growth of ultra-flat crack-free highly-crystalline single-layer graphene"
If you have foils and perform a classic CVD protocol, you'll get a patchwork of different orientations. I however observed that if you anneal your Cu foil under Ar (no H2 at all!!) at high temperature (like a CVD process with a 2h step at 1050°C but no growth step), cool it down, detach it from the substrate, flip it and re-deposit it on the support (so that the foil is kinda suspended or at least not in full contact with the support), and then perform the actual CVD process. By doing that, you'll have an oxide layer on both surface during the pre-growth stage (Cu microstructure evolution) and it will help having mostly Cu(111). Doing a pre-annealing in air does not work as well (not sure why but probably not high temperature enough).
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