Wetting-Assisted Crack- and Wrinkle-Free Transfer of Wafer-Scale Graphene onto Arbitrary Substrates over a Wide Range of Surface Energies

The polymer-supported wet transfer of chemical vapor deposition-grown graphene provides high-quality large-area graphene on a target substrate. The transfer-induced defects that result from these processes, such as micrometer-scale folds and cracks, have been regarded as an inevitable problem. Here, the transfer processes are thoroughly examined stage-by-stage and it is found that lamination wrinkles, which cause defects in the graphene, are generated as a result of the high contact angles of the trapped transfer medium liquids. Systematic theoretical and experimental studies demonstrate that a liquid droplet with a low surface tension trapped between the polymer/graphene film and the substrate minimizes lamination wrinkles during the transfer process by completely wetting the target substrate, regardless of the surface energy. In connection with these results, a simple and broadly applicable transfer method is developed using an organic liquid with a low surface tension to uniformly transfer high-quality graphene onto arbitrary substrates, even onto superhydrophobic substrate. The graphene obtained using the proposed organic liquid transfer method displays better electrical and mechanical properties than the graphene transferred by the conventional method using water. This effective and practical transfer method provides an approach to obtaining high-quality graphene for use in graphene-based devices.