Although the CVD synthesis of graphene on Cu(111) is an industrial process of outstanding importance, its theoretical description and modeling are hampered by its multiscale nature and the large number of elementary reactions involved. In this work, we propose an analytical model of graphene nucleation and growth on Cu(111) surfaces based on the combination of kinetic nucleation theory and the DFT simulations of elementary steps. In the framework of the proposed model, the mechanism of graphene nucleation is analyzed with particular emphasis on the roles played by the two main feeding species, C and C2. Our analysis reveals unexpected patterns of graphene growth, not typical for classical nucleation theories. In addition, we show that the proposed theory allows for the reproduction of the experimentally observed characteristics of polycrystalline graphene samples in the most computationally efficient way.
Keywords: analytical model; chemical vapor deposition; graphene growth; lattice gas model; nucleation kinetics.