Evidence: Well-supported as a process map. Capacity announcements are not grades.
Mechanical cleavage
Scotch-tape / micromechanical exfoliation from graphite. Best flakes for physics. Terrible area. 2004
Epitaxy on SiC
Heat SiC; Si leaves; carbon rearranges. Wafer-ish, substrate-bound, expensive. IBM 100 GHz FETs (2010).
CVD on metal
Grow on Cu (landmark 2009) or Ni; transfer off. Path to large optical films (2010 Bae). Defects: grains, wrinkles, transfer residue, cracks.
Oxide route
Oxidize graphite (Brodie / Staudenmaier / Hummers), exfoliate to GO, optionally reduce to rGO. Scalable, dirty, hydrophilic. before-1900 · 1962
Liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE)
Sonicate or shear graphite in solvent; centrifuge to sort. Cascaded centrifugation example: 2026-09-12-few-layer-graphene-centrifugation. Typical product is FLG / platelets, not a 2004 Hall bar.
Bottom-up organic / CVD variants
Nanoribbons from molecular precursors; plasma and flame methods; electrochemical exfoliation. Niche or vendor-specific; demand a methods section.
Assembly
Wet spinning, foams, papers, inks, masterbatch. The sheet was made by one of the routes above; this step only packs it. Occupational advice often prefers masterbatch over dry powder (2026-09-16-niosh-graphene-exposure).