Tailoring electrical transport across grain boundaries in polycrystalline graphene

Abstract

Graphene produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is polycrystalline, and scattering of charge carriers at grain boundaries (GBs) could degrade its performance relative to exfoliated, single-crystal graphene. However, the electrical properties of GBs have so far been addressed indirectly without simultaneous knowledge of their locations and structures. We present electrical measurements on individual GBs in CVD graphene first imaged by transmission electron microscopy. Unexpectedly, the electrical conductance improves by one order of magnitude for GBs with better interdomain connectivity. Our study suggests that polycrystalline graphene with good stitching may allow for uniformly high electrical performance rivaling that of exfoliated samples, which we demonstrate using optimized growth conditions and device geometry.