Front. Mater. Sci.
China 2010, 4(1): 45–51
DOI 10.1007/s11706-010-0014-3
REVIEW ARTICLE
Properties, synthesis, and characterization of graphene
Liang-Xu DONG, Qiang CHEN (✉)
Laboratory of Plasma Physics and Materials, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, Beijing 102600, China
© Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
Abstract Graphene is a wonder material that attracts
great interests in materials science and condensed matter
physics. It is the thinnest material and also the strongest
material ever measured. Its distinctive band structure and
physical properties determine its bright application pro-
spects. This review introduces briefly the properties and
applications of graphene. Recent synthesis and characteri-
zation methods are summarized in detail, and the future
research direction is also pointed out in this paper.
Keywords graphene, properties, synthesis, characteriza-
tion
1 Introduction
Since graphene was discovered in 2004, it has attracted
great interests because of its outstanding electrical and
mechanical properties [1]. Graphene is a well-defined two-
dimensional crystal material, as Fig. 1(a) shows, and it is
regarded as the elementary structure of carbon-based
materials, such as carbon nanotube, fullerene, and graphite
[2]. Before the discovery of graphene, it was once
considered that the thermodynamic fluctuation does not
allow any two-dimensional crystals existence at the finite
temperature. The successful synthesis of single layer
graphene shocked the entire condensed matter physics
community. Then, after the work of graphene was first
published in October 2004, the amount of papers relevant
to graphene was more than hundreds published on top
journals, such as Science and Nature. There is no doubt
that graphene is a very important discovery after fullerene
and carbon nanotube. Its distinctive structure and excellent
properties certainly make it being widely used in future.
Received November 13, 2009; accepted December 10, 2009
E-mail: chenqiang@bigc.edu.cn
2 The properties and applications of
graphene
Graphene is one layer of atomic carbon, and its theoretic
thickness is only 0.34 nm. The theoretical specific surface
area of graphene is up to 2600 m2/g [3]. It has outstanding
thermal conductivity (3000 W/(m$K)), as well as high-
speed electron mobility (15000 cm2/(V$s)) at room
temperature. Its mechanical stress reaches to 1060 GPa
[4], while the density is only 2.2 g/cm3.
Besides, graphene also has many special characteristics,
such as bipolar supercurrent, chiral tunneling of relativistic
particles, absence of Anderson location, and anomalous
quantum Hall effect [5]. These unique characters make it
provide a research platform for quantum mechanics and
condensed matter physics. Many phenomena are easily
observed in graphene, which were only observed in black
holes or heavy ion accelerators in previous.
Moreover, graphene is the strongest material ever
measured in the world. It is noticed that the graphene
density is even harder than diamond and about 100 times
stronger than that of the best steels in the world.
The single graphene layer is a semimetal or zero-gap
semiconductor and has excellent electronic properties. The
electron mobility of graphene is very high; it is about 10
times faster than the commercial silicon wafer. Further-
more, the mobility is little affected by the temperature. Its
carrier shows ballistic transport under ambient condition.
These properties share prominent advantages of gra-
phene used in nanoelectronic devices. It is possible using
graphene for ballistic field effect transistor at room
temperature. The nanoribbon transistors with large on-off
current ratios at room temperature [6] were demonstrated
in Fig. 1(b). Graphene makes it possible for this relatively
simple framework to implement complex and new circuit
and becomes the basic electronic material beyond the
silicon age.
However, the current situation is not optimistic, and the
difficulties are still puzzling researchers, such as the
preparation of high-quality large-area graphene, the high
stability, and consistence, as well as a simple process. In
46 Front. Mater. Sci. China 2010, 4(1): 45–51
Fig. 1 (a) The structure of graphene; (b) Graphene nanoribbons exhibit the transistor action with large on-off ratios (Reprinted with
permission from Ref. [6])
order to get the size required, we often resort to cut down
graphene to obtain graphene nanoribbons. Graphene
nanoribbons have already been produced using plasma
etching, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) lithogra-
phy, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) anodic oxida-
tion, as well as by chemically derived techniques [7].
However, a method to produce single-layer graphene
structures with well-defined crystallographic edges
remains elusive. Geim [8] forecasted that it might require
another 10 years before the first integrated circuits based
on graphene chips to appear.
Another important application is that graphene can be
used as transparent electrode, which maybe widely used in
liquid crystal display (LCD), organic light emitting display
(OLED), or organic solar cells in future [9]. Graphene has
an optical transmission rate over 98%, significantly higher
than that 82%–85% of the standard indium tin oxides
(ITO) film. Through the reduction processing graphene
demonstrates a low resistance, and it can be reduced
furthermore by chemical doping. ITO, on the other hand,
has to trade resistance for transparency. Indeed, if an ITO
electrode is made thin enough to rival the transparency of
graphene, its sheet resistance also shall be skyrockets [8].
Established on large specific surface area, graphene is
also used as gas detector and biological system. Schedin et
al. [10] showed that the micrometer-sized sensors made
from graphene are capable of detecting individual events
when a gas molecule is attached to or detached from
graphene’s surface. Mohanty et al. [11] demonstrated the
interfacing of chemically modified graphene with biologi-
cal systems to build a novel live-bacterial-hybrid device
and a DNA-hybridization device with excellent sensitivity.
Due to the excellent electrical, thermal, and mechanical
properties, graphene is expected to be used in high-
performance nanoelectronic devices, composite materials,
field emission materials, gas sensors, energy storage areas,
etc.
3 The synthesis of graphene
At the beginning, the graphene fabrication is micromecha-
nical cleavage from graphite, it is also the method that
graphene was first isolated for property study. This way is
often referred to as a scotch-tape technique, which relies on
destroying Van der Waals force between graphite layers.
Geim’s group first isolated graphene from platelets of
highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) [1]. They first
prepared 5 mm-deep mesas on top of the platelets using dry
etching in oxygen plasma. The structured surface was then
pressed against a 1-mm-thick layer of a fresh wet
photoresist spun over a glass substrate. After baking, the
mesas became attached to the photoresist layer. Then,
using scotch tape, they started repeatedly peeling flakes of
graphite off the mesas. Thin flakes left in the photoresist
were released in acetone. When a Si wafer was dipped in
the solution, some flakes became captured on the wafer’s
surface (as shown in Fig. 2(a)). Although delicate and
time-consuming, the handcraft provides crystals of high
structural and electronic quality, which can currently reach
millimeter size. It is likely to remain the technique of
choice for basic research and for making proof-of-concept
devices in the foreseeable future [12]. However, it is
obviously not suitable for large-scale preparation due to
nonfiguration.
The second method for graphene fabrication is chemical
cleavage from graphite, which is an improvement of
micromechanical cleavage. Graphene made from chemical
cleavage can reap larger quantities. The single sheet is
fabricated from graphite oxide. Due to the existence of
oxide groups, the atomic planes of graphite are partially
detached by intercalation. After ultrasonic cleaning for
several hours, these samples are exfoliated to create stable
aqueous dispersions of individual sheets, as Fig. 2(b)
shows. After deposition, graphene oxide can be reduced to
graphene either by means of chemical or by thermal
 Liang-Xu DONG et al. Properties, synthesis, and characterization of graphene 47

annealing [13]. Although the thickness is not consistent,
which varies between one and four layers of carbon, the
optical properties still match to those of graphene
fabricated by micromechanical cleavage method. The
small scale size, in tens of microns however, hinders the
application of graphene by this method.
The graphene grown epitaxially on SiC substrates and
patterned via standard lithographic procedures has been
proposed as a platform for carbon-based nanoelectronics
and molecular electronics in recent studies [14,15]. The
epitaxial graphene was produced on the Si terminated
(0001) facet of single-crystal 6H-SiC by thermal desorp-
tion of Si [16]. After the surface is oxidized or reduced in
H2, samples are heated by electron bombardment in ultra-
high vacuum (ca. 1.3310–8 Pa) to 1000°C and remove the
oxide. Then, samples are heated again to temperatures in
the range of 1250°C to 1450°C for 1–20 min. After
these processes, thin graphene layers are formed (as shown
in Fig. 2(c)), and the layer thickness is determined
predominantly by the temperature [14]. The shortcoming
of the epitaxial graphene on SiC is a lot of defects in the
layer besides it hard to transfer to other substrates.
Therefore, this method needs further improvement.
The last method to fabricate graphene is chemical vapor
deposition (CVD). This method has the potential for
large-scale area production. Nowadays, graphene made by
CVD on silicon wafer with nickel layer as catalyst has
achieved centimeter in size. Groups at MIT and in Korea
[17,18] have developed a simple method to grow and
transfer the high-quality stretchable graphene films using
CVD technology on nickel layer. The mechanism is based
on precipitation, where Ni and C atoms form a solid
solution in CVD after heating. Since the solubility of C in
Ni is temperature-dependent, C atoms precipitate and form
graphene layer on the Ni surface upon sharply cooling of
the sample (in Fig. 2(d)) [18], and the layer of graphene
depends on the concentration of C precipitated in Ni.
However, Li et al. [19] recently fabricated graphene films
on copper foils. They concluded that the thickness of
graphene films were independent on exploring time, and
the low solubility of carbon in copper made this growth
process self-limiting. The precipitation mechanism did not
work on copper substrate. Therefore, the mechanism of
CVD growth graphene needs additional experiments to be
fully understood.
Anyway, this method demonstrates the potential for
large area production, and the graphene can be easily
transferred to other substrates [20]. Therefore, the CVD
technology has attracted wide attention for large-scale
preparation of graphene. However, graphene obtained by

Fig. 2 (a) Large graphene crystal prepared on an oxidized Si wafer by the scotch-tape technique (Reprinted with permission from Ref.
[12]); (b) Graphene made from chemical cleavage from graphite (Reprinted from Ref. [13]); (c) Low-energy electron diffraction (LEED)
pattern (of three monolayers of epitaxial graphene on 4H-SiC(0001) (C-terminated face) (Reprinted from Ref. [15]) ; (d) Optical image of
Ni film on SiO2/Si, and CVD graphene is grown on the surface of the Ni pattern (Reprinted from Ref. [18])
48 Front. Mater. Sci. China 2010, 4(1): 45–51
this method usually is a mixture of single and multilayer,
and how to improve the quality of graphene is the goal of
the future research work.
Meanwhile, to realize the graphene-based circuits,
various types of graphene are needed. Thus, modulation
of its electrical properties is of great technological
importance. Doping it with other elements is a promising
way to achieve this goal, and the doped graphene might
promise fascinating properties and widespread applica-
tions.
Bekyarova et al. [21] demonstrated a chemical modi-
fication of epitaxial graphene (EG) by covalent attachment
of aryl groups to the basal carbon atoms. The surface
modification of EG with nitrophenyl groups was achieved
through the spontaneous reaction of the diazonium salt
with the graphene layer. They showed that the chemical
formation of carbon-carbon bonds offers an alternative
approach to the control of the electronic properties of
epitaxial graphene, and the transformation of the carbon
centers from sp2 to sp3 introduces a barrier to electron
flowing by opening a band gap and allows the generation
of insulating and semiconducting regions in graphene
wafers.
Elias et al. [22] attached atomic hydrogen to each site of
the graphene lattice to create graphane, which changes the
hybridization of carbon atoms from sp2 into sp3, thus
removing the conducting p-bands and opening an energy
gap. Hydrogenated graphene realized the function of not
only a metal-insulator transition but also an alternative
candidate for hydrogen storage material.
Groups in the Chinese Academy of Sciences provided a
CVD technique to produce the N-doped graphene, the first
experimental example of a substitutionally doped gra-
phene. They measured the electrical properties of the N-
doped graphene, which behaves like an n-type semicon-
ductor, indicating that the doping can modulate the
electrical properties of graphene. This work provides a
new experimental instance of graphene and would promote
the research and applications of graphene [23].
4 The characterization of graphene
Graphene is only one layer of atomic carbon and very
transparent, so the characterization method is very
important and difficult. The usual methods include optical
microscope, SEM, TEM, AFM, Raman spectroscopy, etc.
The identification of graphene sheets, down to one layer
in thickness, is possibly realized through optical micro-
scopy via the color contrast caused by the light interference
effect on the SiO2 substrate, which is modulated by the
graphene layer [24,25]. Gao et al. [24] developed a total
color difference (TCD) method to make it possible for
characterization of large-area graphene samples. This
method based on a combination of reflection spectrum
and international commission on illumination color space
provides accurate and reliable layer identification for rapid
evaluation of the layer range of graphene by different color
bands, which opens up the possibility for the nondestruc-
tive identification and physical property measurements of
graphene with an optical microscope.
SEM is also used for observation of graphene. This
method is similar to optical microscope. Usually, it needs
to transfer graphene to silicon wafer with a specific
thickness of SiO2. From the color depth, the layer of
graphene can be estimated. To identify graphene films,
Geim’s group compared the results of optical and SEM
of large areas on the wafer, trying to find the film
visible in SEM but not in optical microscope [1].
Figure 3(a) shows the flakes, which is easily identifiable on
both SEM and optical images because of a thick region
nearby. The graphene film gives a more clear contrast in
SEM.
AFM is an effective way for the characterization of
graphene. Though the thickness of graphene is very thin, it
can easily get the morphological feature using AFM. From
the step of graphene on substrate, it is possible to estimate
the number of graphene layer. Due to the differences in tip
attraction/repulsion between the insulating substrate and
semimetallic graphene and under ambient conditions by
the preferential adsorption of a thin layer of water on
graphene, it is hard to get the theoretical thickness of
0.34 nm (which results in an typical thickness ranging from
0.6 to 1.0 nm for single layers, as shown in Fig. 3(b) and
(c)). Therefore, the AFM method for measurement of the
graphene layer number is not accurate, and it has a very
low throughput [26].
TEM can not only observe the morphological feature of
graphene but also count the number of graphene layers
accurately. It is known that the edges of the graphene films
always fold back, which allows a cross sectional view of
the films (as Fig. 3(d) shows). The observation of these
edges by TEM provides an accurate way to account the
number of layers at multiple locations on the films.
Besides, TEM is often assisted with electron diffraction
pattern, which shows a hexagonal pattern of the graphene
crystal structure.
Raman spectroscopy can provide a quick and effective
way for structure and quality characterization of graphene.
The peaks at 1350 cm–1 (noted as D band), 1580 cm–1 (G
band), and 2700 cm–1 (G’ band, also called as 2D band) are
presented in the spectrum of the graphene samples. The D
band of graphene associates with the existence of defects:
the lower intensity of D peak, the fewer defects of the
graphene layer. It also associates with doping in graphene
[22]. The G band is E2g mode of graphite, which is due to
the sp2-bonded carbon atoms in a two-dimensional
hexagonal graphite layer. The G’ band is a double
resonance Raman process, which involves the scattering
of two phonons with opposite momentum around the high
symmetry K point in the first Brillouin zone of graphene
[27–30].
 Liang-Xu DONG et al. Properties, synthesis, and characterization of graphene 49

Fig. 3 (a) Images of a thin graphitic flake in optical (left) and scanning electron (right) microscopes. Few-layer graphene is clearly
visible in SEM (in the center) but not in optics (Reprinted with permission from Ref. [1]); (b) AFM image of graphene on SiO2/Si substrate
(Reprinted from Ref. [13]); (c) The height of graphene based on (b) (Reprinted from Ref. [13]); (d) High-magnification TEM image of
graphene (Reprinted from Ref. [17])

From Raman spectroscopy, one can deduce the layers
of graphene. As shown in Fig. 4, a further increase in
layer leads to a significant decrease in the relative
intensity of the G’ band. At the same time, the G’ band
shall shift to higher wave number and saturate to that of
HOPG, whereas the intensity ratio IG’/IG reduces
gradually. Thus, Raman spectroscopy can clearly distin-
guish a single layer, from a bilayer or few (less than 5)
layers [27]. Due to the advantage of high-throughput and
nondestructive identification of graphene layers, Raman
spectroscopy is wildly used for characterizing graphene
recently.
5 The prospect of graphene
Graphene research is developing in a very rapid pace.
Since the discovery of graphene, the study on graphene is
remarkably intense. The amounts of literature on graphene
keep rapidly increasing over the next few years [12]. The
curiosity for the properties of graphene, the aspiration for
its application in transparent electrode, field effect
transistor (FET), and sensors, tempt scientists to study
graphene with great enthusiasm. However, it seems that the
difficulty is not easily being solved recently, and the new
challenges shall appear at any moment.
50 Front. Mater. Sci. China 2010, 4(1): 45–51
Fig. 4 (a) Comparison of Raman spectra at 514 nm for bulk graphite and graphene; (b) Evolution of the G’ band at 514 nm with the
number of layers (Reprinted with permission from Ref. [27])
First, the novel approach for large area, high quality, low
temperature, and fast growth shall be explored in future.
Although many methods were developed for the graphene
synthesis, the quality, scale, and throughput still need
further improvement.
Second, most of the recent characterization methods
need to transfer graphene to a specified substrate, which
decreases the efficiency of the characterization, such as
silicon with certain thickness of native oxide. Though
Raman spectroscopy provides a fast identification of
graphene layers, once the graphene film is up to several
few layers (more than 5 layers), it is hard to distinguish it
from graphite [27]. The rapid and effective identification
method needs to be discovered.
Last but not the least, thanks to the recent rapid
development of transfer technique, graphene can be easily
and accurately transferred to other substrates. However,
how to integrate graphene into present-day electronic
devices is still on the way, which is critical for the
graphene application. Graphene-based devices should be
intensely studied further.
Even the existence of many difficulties, it is believed
that the suitable synthetic techniques can be found soon.
The size and quality of graphene are already improving a
lot in recent years, and there is no doubt that it will be
further improved in future. With the in-depth study and
efforts by scholars, graphene and its composite materials
will be applied to the national economy as early as
possible.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 10775017 and 10830011.
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