Ultrathin epitaxial graphite was grown on single-crystal silicon carbide by vacuum graphitization. The material can be patterned using standard nanolithography methods. The transport properties, which are closely related to those of carbon nanotubes, are dominated by the single epitaxial graphene layer at the silicon carbide interface and reveal the Dirac nature of the charge carriers. Patterned structures show quantum confinement of electrons and phase coherence lengths beyond 1 micrometer at 4 kelvin, with mobilities exceeding 2.5 square meters per volt-second. All-graphene electronically coherent devices and device architectures are envisaged.

The electronic properties of epitaxial graphene grown on SiC have shown its potential as a viable candidate for post-CMOS electronics. However, progress in this field requires a detailed understanding of both the structure and growth of epitaxial graphene. To that end, this review will focus on the current state of epitaxial graphene research as it relates to the structure of graphene grown on SiC. We pay particular attention to the similarity and differences between graphene growth on the two polar faces, ( 0001) and (000 1), of hexagonal SiC. Growth techniques, subsequent morphology and the structure of the graphene/SiC interface and graphene stacking order are reviewed and discussed. Where possible the relationship between film morphology and electronic properties will also be reviewed.

We show experimentally that multilayer graphene grown on the carbon terminated SiC(0001[over ]) surface contains rotational stacking faults related to the epitaxial condition at the graphene-SiC interface. Via first-principles calculation, we demonstrate that such faults produce an electronic structure indistinguishable from an isolated single graphene sheet in the vicinity of the Dirac point. This explains prior experimental results that showed single-layer electronic properties, even for epitaxial graphene films tens of layers thick.

Recent transport measurements on thin graphite films grown on SiC show large coherence lengths and anomalous integer quantum Hall effects expected for isolated graphene sheets. This is the case eventhough the layer-substrate epitaxy of these films implies a strong interface bond that should induce perturbations in the graphene electronic structure. Our DFT calculations confirm this strong substrate-graphite bond in the first adsorbed carbon layer that prevents any graphitic electronic properties for this layer. However, the graphitic nature of the film is recovered by the second and third absorbed layers. This effect is seen in both the (0001)and (0001) 4H SiC surfaces. We also present evidence of a charge transfer that depends on the interface geometry. It causes the graphene to be doped and gives rise to a gap opening at the Dirac point after 3 carbon layers are deposited in agreement with recent ARPES experiments (T.Ohta et al, Science 313 (2006) 951).PACS numbers: 73.20. At, 71.15.Mb The possibility of carbon nanotubes (CNT) switching devices has been pursued in the last decade because of their attractive electronic properties. Nevertheless, problems with large intrinsic resistance in contacts and the inability to control tube helicity, and thus whether or not they are metallic or semiconducting, have made large scale circuit designs problematic. The proposed solution to these problems is an all carbon nanoelectronics paradigm based on the planar 2D form of carbon, graphene. [1] Graphene consists of a single carbon plane arranged on a honeycomb lattice. From a fundamental point of view, graphene ribbons can be seen as an unrolled CNT but with different boundary conditions (finite versus cyclic). Therefore, their electronic properties should be similar. In fact this has been demonstrated in recent experiments on single and multi-graphene sheets that show the existence of Dirac Fermions, large electron coherence lengths and anomalous integer quantum Hall effect [2,3,4]. The advantage of graphene over CNTs for electronics resides in its planar 2D structure that enables circuit design with standard lithography techniques. This enables the graphene to be cut with different shapes and selected edge direction. By simply selecting the ribbon edge direction it is possible to design metallic or semiconductor graphene ribbons [5,6] (analogous to helicity in CNTs).Since single or multiple sheets must be supported on a surface for fabrication, the pressing question becomes: how does the interface between a graphene sheet and its support affect its electronic properties? In other words can the symmetry of an isolated graphene sheet be maintained in the presence of an interface? It is this question that is the focus of this paper. Specifically we have studied the system of graphite grown on both polar faces of hexagonal SiC.The graphene layers are produced by sublimating Si from either the 4H-or 6H-SiC (0001) (Si terminated) or (0001) (C terminated) surfaces at sufficiently high temperatures to graphitize the excess car...

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With expanding interest in graphene-based electronics, it is crucial that high quality graphene films be grown. Sublimation of Si from the 4H-SiC(0001) (Si-terminated) surface in ultrahigh vacuum is a demonstrated method to produce epitaxial graphene sheets on a semiconductor. In this paper we show that graphene grown from the SiC(0001) (C-terminated) surface are of higher quality than those previously grown on SiC(0001). Graphene grown on the C-face can have structural domain sizes more than three times larger than those grown on the Si-face while at the same time reducing SiC substrate disorder from sublimation by an order of magnitude.

We present a structural analysis of the multi-layer graphene-4HSiC(0001) system using Surface X-Ray Reflectivity. We show for the first time that graphene films grown on the C-terminated (0001) surface have a graphene-substrate bond length that is very short (1.62Å). The measured distance rules out a weak Van der Waals interaction to the substrate and instead indicates a strong bond between the first graphene layer and the bulk as predicted by ab-initio calculations. The measurements also indicate that multi-layer graphene grows in a near turbostratic mode on this surface. This result may explain the lack of a broken graphene symmetry inferred from conduction measurements on this system [C. Berger et al., Science 312, 1191].

We present a structural analysis of the graphene-4HSiC͑0001͒ interface using surface x-ray reflectivity. We find that the interface is composed of an extended reconstruction of two SiC bilayers. The interface directly below the first graphene sheet is an extended layer that is more than twice the thickness of a bulk SiC bilayer ͑ϳ1.7 Å compared to 0.63 Å͒. The distance from this interface layer to the first graphene sheet is much smaller than the graphite interlayer spacing but larger than the same distance measured for graphene grown on the ͑0001͒ surface, as predicted previously by ab initio calculations.