Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing large area graphene for graphene-based photonics devices such as bolometric graphene detectors, or for use as a saturable absorber in ultra-high bandwidth detectors for producing ultrafast laser pulses. The method includes: growing a first graphene layer on one side of a metal substrate, and a second graphene layer on another side of the metal substrate; coating the first graphene layer with a plurality of resist layers including a low molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate, and a high molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate; removing the second graphene layer and the metal substrate to reveal the first graphene layer; disposing the first graphene layer on an optical substrate; and removing the plurality of resist layers from the first graphene layer to reveal a final graphene layer, which can be used as the basis to manufacture a multilayer graphene structure for graphene detectors.