Graphene on Heterepitaxial Silicon Carbide - Steps towards a Manufacturable Process

石墨烯是一种排列成蜂窝状晶格的单层碳原子，具有许多新特性，如室温下的弹道电子输运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，如集成电路制造。本研究旨在为器件外延石墨烯衬底开发一种新的合成和放大工艺以及无损晶圆级计量方案。该方法是基于SiC薄膜外延生长在硅片上。该异质外延SiC薄膜随后被用于制造石墨烯层。该方案的优点是：1)使用高度均匀和可再生的SiC薄膜作为起始材料；ii)该工艺可扩展到大面积晶圆，并且更具成本效益，因为薄膜是批量沉积在硅晶圆上（而不是SiC衬底）。这项研究更广泛的影响在于，它有望开发出一种可扩展的工艺，用于生产高质量和可重复性的外延石墨烯片，原则上，可以在更大的面积上生产。这反过来又将使石墨烯的非凡特性在超高速、超低功耗电子和高灵敏度化学和电化学传感器等应用中得到充分利用。人力资源发展和外联活动也将产生重大影响，包括培训学生和传播档案文献中的成果以及通过PI向一般公众进行的讲座。

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.