Graphene on Heterepitaxial Silicon Carbide - Steps towards a Manufacturable Process

石墨烯是一种由单层碳原子组成的蜂窝状结构，具有许多新颖的性质，如室温下的弹道电子输运和微米级的相干长度。此外，其平面性质使其更易于集成到基于薄膜的技术中，例如集成电路制造。本研究旨在开发一种新的合成和放大工艺和无损晶圆级计量方案的器件使能外延石墨烯衬底。该方法是基于Si晶片上外延生长的SiC薄膜。异质外延SiC膜随后用于产生石墨烯层。 该方案的优点包括：i）使用高度均匀和可再现的SiC膜作为起始材料; ii）该工艺可扩展到大面积晶片，并且由于膜批量沉积在Si晶片（而不是SiC衬底）上，因此更具成本效益。 这项研究的更广泛影响在于它有望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片，原则上，在大面积上。 这些反过来将使石墨烯的非凡特性在超高速，超低功耗电子和强大的高灵敏度化学和电化学传感器等应用中得到充分利用。 其他重要影响将是人力资源开发和外联活动，包括培训学生和在档案文献中传播成果，并通过PI向公众提供的讲座。

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.