Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, 2010.Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-177).An ambient pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) process is used to fabricate graphene based films consisting of one to several graphene layers across their area. Polycrystalline Ni thin films are used and the graphene can be transferred from the Ni surface to dielectric substrates in order to integrate them to graphene device prototypes. Uniform single layer graphene can be grown with the same process by using single crystalline Ni with a (111) surface orientation. Raman spectroscopy and electron diffraction characterization is undertaken in order to determine the nature of the layer stacking for the case of multilayer graphene.by Alfonso Reina Ceeco.Ph.D