Adding gold to a nickel growth film can halve the temperature at which high-quality graphene can be grown

Researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK say that adding gold (

Using just nickel, a temperature of about 1000ºC is required to grow 15µm crystals. The gold cuts the chance of nucleation, which allows the carbon crystals to grow bigger before they hit one another. This reduces the temperature needed to grow the same 15µm crystals to about 450ºC.