Synthesis and patterning of graphene: Strategies and prospects

The extraordinary success of graphene in various applications has led to the quest to innovate techniques for production and patterning of nanomaterials. Numerous techniques such as vapor deposition, epitaxial growth, mechanical and chemical exfoliation have been explored to achieve this goal. These new methods have enabled the synthesis of a monolayer to a few layer graphene structures, in various forms such as films, nanoribbons, and 3D nanocomposites that are dispersed in solutions, suspended or deposited on substrates. However, several challenges still exist in processing graphene for futuristic device fabrication. Thus, there is a need to review the traditional processing and synthesis techniques developed for obtaining graphene. This review will provide a solid foundation on technology development for achieving economical and high throughput synthesis of high quality graphene for scalable applications. In this review, we provide a brief discussion on the theory of graphene, discuss synthesis techniques along with conventional and recent approaches to pattern graphene structures, and conclude with an emphasis on direct patterning methods. Discussions on the properties of graphene produced using different techniques and their emerging applications will assist in selecting an appropriate methodology for achieving desired properties in graphene. This is expected to be instrumental in the development of new strategies for fabrication of futuristic graphene-based devices.