Cu etching is one of the key processes
to produce large-area graphene
through chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which is needed to remove
Cu catalysts and transfer graphene onto target substrates for further
applications. However, the Cu etching method has been much less studied
compared to doping or transfer processes despite its importance in
producing higher quality graphene films. The Cu etchant generally
includes a strong oxidizing agent that converts metallic Cu to Cu2+ in a short period of time. Sometimes, the highly concentrated
Cu2+ causes a side reaction leading to defect formation
on graphene, which needs to be suppressed for higher graphene quality.
Here we report that the addition of metal-chelating agents such as
benzimidazole (BI) to etching solution reduces the reactivity of Cu-etching
solution by forming a coordination compound between BI and Cu2+. The resulting graphene film prepared by Cu stabilizing
agent exhibits a sheet resistance as lows as ∼200 Ohm/sq without
additional doping processes. We also confirmed that such strong doping
effect is stable enough to last for more than 10 months under ambient
conditions due to the barrier properties of graphene covering the
BI dopants, in contrast to the poor stability of graphene additionally
doped by strong p-dopant such as HAuCl4. Thus, we expect
that this simultaneous doping and etching method would be very useful
for simple and high-throughput production of large-area graphene electrodes
with enhanced conductivity.