Feng Ding
Institute of Textile and Clothing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PR China

The epitaxial CVD growth on catalyst surface is the most promising method of synthesizing high quality, large area graphene. A complete growth process includes (i) the nucleation of graphene domains, (ii) the expansion the domain and (iii) the coalescence of the graphene domains into a macroscopic graphene layer. In this talk, I'm going to present our recent theoretical studies on (i) and (ii) in details and (iii) briefly:
· During the nucleation stage on most catalyst surface, C chains that have up to 8-13 C atoms are found very stable and a transition from sp1 one dimensional (1D) C chain to sp2 two dimensional (2D) graphene island is necessary to initiate the graphene nucleation.[1-2] The metal step was found to be the preferred site of graphene nucleation on catalyst surface and the medium sized C cluster, C21, showed exceptional stability on the catalyst surface; [3-4]
· Edge construction is crucial for graphene in vacuum, while graphene edge on catalyst prefers to maintain its pristine form. [5] While the naked graphene edge on Cu(111) surface tends to be terminated by Cu add atoms and the special passivation contribute to the fast growth rate of graphene armchair edge; [6]
· Three modes of graphene CVD growth, on terrace, near metal step, and the embedded growth are proposed and the graphene epitaxy growth or the determination of graphene's orientation on various catalyst are carefully studied; [7-8]
· Other related topics--the formation of point defects in graphene CVD growth and the mechanism of defect healing,[9] the role of hydrogen in graphene CVD growth on Cu surface,[10] and the detailed mechanism of graphene domain evolution during the growth-etching-regrowth procedure on Pt surface [11] will also be discussed.

References:
[1] J. F. Gao, et. al., J. Phys. Chem. C, 115 (36), 17695, (2011)
[2] J. F. Gao, et. al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 133(13), 5009, (2011)
[3] Q. H. Yuan, et. al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 133(40), 16072, (2011)
[4] Q. H. Yuan, et. al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 134, 2970-2975, (2012)
[5] J. F. Gao, et. al., J. Am. Chem. Soc, 134, 6204-6209, (2012)
[6] H. Shu, et. al., ACS Nano, 6, 3243-3250 (2012)
[7] X. Y. Zhang, et. al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 3, 2822, (2012)
[8] Q. H. Yuan, et. al., submitted
[9] L. Wang, et. al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 135, 4476 (2013)
[10] X. Y. Zhang, et. al., ., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 136, 3040, (2014)
[11] T Ma, et. al., PNAS, 110, 20386 (2013)

Brief Bio

Feng Ding obtained his Bs, Ms and PhD degrees from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Fudan University and Nanjing University in 1993, 1996 and 2002, respectively. Then he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Gothenburg University and Chalmers University in Sweden from 2003 to 2005. From 2005, he joined Rice University as a Research Scientist until the end of 2008. In 2009, he joined the Institute of Textile and Clothing of Hong Kong Polytechnic University as an Assistant Professor. Since 2013, he was promoted as a tenured associate professor.

Dr. Ding's research interests mainly focus on the growth mechanism, properties and applications of various carbon materials (fullerene, carbon nanotubes and graphene). Dr. Ding has published about 110 SCI papers with more than 30 in top journals (IF >7), including 1 in Nature; 1 in Nat. Comm.; 3 in PNAS; 6 in PRL; 7 in JACS; 2 in Ange. Chem.--Int. Ed.; 3 in Nano Lett.; 5 ACS Nano; 3 in Adv. Mat...) and these publications have been cited by more than 2600 times until now. The present personal h-index of Dr. Sing is 29.