During cvd a reaction occurs between the copper substrate and the graphene that create a high level of hydrostatic compression coupling the graphene to the substrate.
Graphene synthesis by cvd on copper substrates.
I feel that is the reason you are doing a.
One alternative method that has been researched involves the creation of cvd graphene on a copper cu substrate in this example cu is used as a catalyst in the reaction.
A creative approach to the cvd synthesis of ultra large area graphene based on selective joule heating was reported by kobayashi et al.
Our research focused on synthesis of monolayer graphene on 25 µm thick copper cu substrates which allowed for lateral growth on the scale of many centimeters.
Since in our experimental conditions graphene was synthesized over the whole substrate surface including areas covered by copper fingers one may expect that the large area graphene film on dielectric can be obtained by removing copper fingers by a simple wet etching process.
Various measurements showed predominantly uniform monolayer graphene.
However your target is to prepare the cu substrate for graphene synthesis so in this case small amount of oxygenated functional groups are beneficial.
Highly uniform monolayer graphene synthesis via a facile pretreatment of copper catalyst substrates using an ammonium persulfate solution hyunhak jeong ab wang taek hwang a younggul song a jae keun kim a youngrok kim a joshua hihath b seungjun chung c and takhee lee a the demand for large area high quality synthesis of graphene with chemical vapor deposition cvd has.