Abstract

It is about a decade since graphene became a material for serious research by researchers in condensed matter of various nationalities making significant progress. This paper on graphene growth and characterization: advances, present challenges and prospects is therefore timely. Basic topics such as graphene and graphene technology, history and trend of graphene as well as graphene growth and synthesis have been discussed. Also presented are fundamental and mechanical properties, structural and morphological property characterization using different techniques. Graphene in biomedical and radio frequency applications, transparent electronics, integrated circuits, quantum dots, frequency multiplier, optical modulator and piezoelectricity and as a battery super capacitor are some applications and uses of graphene that have been considered. The lowering of the growth temperature of graphene has been found to be beneficial for the compartibility with other materials and processes and could also decrease the impact of cooling-induced wrinkling on the morphology of graphene; the growth on dielectric substrates; being able to resolve many problems associated with metallic growth substrates; better control of both the formation and the extension of additional layers on the graphene through substrate engineering that will result in approaches of graphene that is envisaged are some of the advances and future prospects. Also, the proposed tunable bandgap for graphene which is essential for microelectronics which contributes one of the present challenges is likely to be achieved in the very near future. Although theoretical and computational analyses have proved to have solved the zero bandgap problem of graphene, more convincing approaches that will solve the problem and give way for the fabrication of high performance graphene device are being awaited.

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