Graphene on Heterepitaxial Silicon Carbide - Steps towards a Manufacturable Process

石墨烯是以蜂窝状排列的单层碳原子，具有许多新的性质，如室温下的弹道电子传输和微米尺度的相干长度。此外，它的平面特性使其更易于集成到基于薄膜的技术中，例如集成电路制造。这项研究旨在开发一种新的合成和放大工艺，以及用于器件使能的外延石墨烯衬底的无损晶片级计量方案。这种方法是基于在硅片上外延生长的碳化硅薄膜。异质外延碳化硅薄膜随后用于产生石墨烯层。该方案的优点包括：i)使用高度均匀和可重复的碳化硅薄膜作为起始材料；ii)该工艺可扩展到大面积晶片上，并且由于薄膜是批量沉积在硅片上(而不是在碳化硅衬底上)，因此更具成本效益。这项研究的更广泛的影响在于它承诺开发一种可扩展的工艺，用于生产高质量和可重复性的外延石墨烯薄片，原则上是大面积生产。这些反过来将使石墨烯的非凡性能在超高速、超低功耗电子产品和坚固耐用的高灵敏度化学和电化学传感器等应用中得到充分利用。此外，还将对人力资源开发和外展活动产生重大影响，包括对学生进行培训，在档案文献中传播成果，以及通过国际和平研究所向公众举办的讲座。

Graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honey-comb lattice, possesses many novel properties, such as ballistic electron transport at room temperature and micron-scale coherence lengths. Moreover, its planar nature makes it much more amenable to integration into thin-film based technologies such as integrated circuit fabrication. This reseach aims to develop a novel synthesis and scale-up process and nondestructive wafer-level metrology scheme for device-enabling epitaxial graphene substrates. The approach is based on SiC thin film epitaxially grown on Si wafers. The heteroepitaxial SiC film is subsequently used to create the graphene layer. The advantages of this scheme include: i) highly uniform and reproducible SiC films are used as the starting material; ii) the process is scalable to large-area wafers and much more cost effective since the films are batch deposited on Si wafers (rather than SiC substrates). The broader impact of the research lies in its promise to develop a scalable process for producing epitaxial graphene sheets with high quality and reproducibility, and in principle, over a large area. These in turn will enable the full utilization of graphene's extraordinary properties in such applications as ultra-high speed, ultra-low power electronics and robust highly sensitive chemical and electrochemical sensors. Additional significant impact will be on human resource development and outreach activities, including training of students and dissemination of the results in the archival literature and through talks given to the general public by the PI.