Tailored conversion of synthetic graphite into rotationally misoriented few-layer graphene by cold thermal shock driven controlled failure

Synthetic graphite is one of the best thermal shock resistant materials and is generally believed to remain unaffected by a thermal shock alone. However, subject to a cold thermal shock, under a pool-boiling heat transfer process, micron size synthetic graphite may become noticeably fragile and can readily convert, to a significant fraction, into rotationally misoriented few-layer graphene (FLG) near the Leidenfrost point. Here we report, for the first time, how such FLG, with precisely controlled number of layers (N), can be obtained from an isostatically compacted synthetic graphite and analyzed the mechanism behind such transformation by a theoretical modeling. In a nutshell, we suggest how one can optimize this technique for producing such FLG with precisely controlled N with minimal cost and instrumental facility with an unbelievably high production-rate.