Graphene on Heterepitaxial Silicon Carbide - Steps towards a Manufacturable Process

石墨烯是排列成蜂窝状晶格的单片碳原子，具有许多新颖的特性，例如室温下的弹道电子传输和微米级相干长度。此外，其平面性质使其更适合集成到集成电路制造等基于薄膜的技术中。本研究旨在开发一种新颖的合成和放大工艺以及用于器件外延石墨烯基板的无损晶圆级计量方案。该方法基于在硅晶圆上外延生长的碳化硅薄膜。随后使用异质外延 SiC 薄膜来创建石墨烯层。 该方案的优点包括：i）使用高度均匀且可再现的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（而不是碳化硅衬底）上。 该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，原则上可以在大面积上生产。 这些反过来又将使石墨烯的非凡特性在超高速、超低功耗电子设备和坚固的高灵敏度化学和电化学传感器等应用中得到充分利用。 其他重大影响将体现在人力资源开发和外展活动上，包括培训学生、在档案文献中以及通过 PI 向公众发表演讲来传播研究结果。

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.