can be loaded into a cylindrical reaction chamber and therefore the width of the thin film subsequently produced can be calculated by referring to the equation 800 shown in fig5 wherein w is the maximum width of the substrate 103 that can be loaded into a cylindrical reaction chamber and therefore the width of the thin film subsequently produced d is the inner diameter of the cylindrical reaction chamber d is the out diameter of the tube or rod 101 to coil the metallic substrate and buffer layer stack t is the thickness of the buffer layer 102 or 102 u2032 the thickness of the buffer layer 102 u2032 is equal to the diameter of the quartz tube or rod 21 t u2032 is the thickness of the substrate 103 in one embodiment take d 4 6 mm d 10 mm t 0 5 mm t u2032 0 075 mm then the width of the thin film produced w 2752 mm u02dc 60 times of the diameter of the reaction chamber in an alternative embodiment of the invention take d 125 mm d 10 mm t 0 5 mm t u2032 0 075 mm then the width of the thin film produced w u02dc 21 meters u02dc 170 times of the diameter of the reaction chamber hence the invention provides methods and apparatus for forming graphene films and other thin films that have a greatly enhanced width dimension while there has been described what are at present considered to be the preferred embodiments of the present invention it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the embodiments described herein are by way of illustration and not of limitation various modifications of the disclosed embodiments.