Abstract
The transfer of graphene prepared by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) from metal catalyst to target substrate is an important step in preparing desirable nanoscale structures in various fields of science, and thus searching for fast, cheap and clean method attracts great interest. Investigation of mechanical properties of graphene, which are crucial for applications in flexible electronics, performed on bendable synthetic materials, requires a transfer technique using polymers soluble in aliphatic solvents harmless for target polymer substrates.
In this study we explore a dry technique using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as stamping polymer and polyisobutylene (PIB) layer as graphene-support polymer. After the transfer PDMS is peeled off and PIB is dissolved in hexane, hence this method fulfils the above mentioned prerequisite.
The effectiveness of this transfer was examined by scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy and Raman microspectroscopy including micro-mapping, and finally by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. With all methods carried out, it was found that this sort of stamp-technique is suitable for a high precision transfer of small grains of CVD graphene onto polymer substrates with large yields and similar purity compared to poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA)based transfer methods.
However, it introduces substantial quantity of surface discontinuities, and therefore this is not a proper method for large scale applications.