Increasing Surface Hardness of S304 Stainless Steel by High Quality Graphene Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition

Stainless steel is widely utilized due to its higher corrosion resistance and gloss than ordinary steels. However, the applications of stainless steel are still limited because of its low surface hardness. Graphene is a superb material, which has an intrinsic strength of 130 GPa. In this report, the growth of high quality graphene on S304 stainless steel by chemical vapor deposition using acetylene gas as a carbon source is demonstrated. The surface hardness of stainless steel after growing high quality graphene is investigated by nanoindentation technique. High quality graphene can increase the surface hardness of stainless steel from 1.54 GPa to 10.08 GPa. Moreover, the effect of graphene quality on the surface hardness of S304 stainless steel is studied. High quality graphene grown by CVD using acetylene gas as a carbon source can increase the surface hardness of stainless steel about two times more than low quality graphene grown by using methane gas.