Epitaxial growth of graphitic carbon on C-face SiC and sapphire by chemical vapor deposition (CVD)

Abstract

Epitaxial, graphitic carbon thin films were directly grown on C-face/ (0001) SiC and (0001) sapphire by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), using propane as a carbon source and without any catalytic metal on the substrate surface. Raman spectroscopy shows the signature of multilayer graphene/graphite growth on both the SiC and sapphire. Raman 2D-peaks have Lorentzian lineshapes with FWHM of ~60 cm -1 and the ratio of the D-peak to G-peak intensity (I D /I G ) linearly decreases (down to 0.06) as growth temperature is increased. The epitaxial relationship between film and substrates were determined by x-ray diffraction. On both substrates, graphitic layers are oriented parallel to the substrate, but exhibit significant rotational disorder about the surface normal, and predominantly rhombohedral stacking. Film thicknesses were determined to be a function of growth time, growth temperature, and propane flow rate.

Configuration-enriched magneto-electronic spectra of AAB-stacked trilayer graphene

“…The essential electronic properties can be drastically changed by the layer number [35][36][37], stacking configuration [37][38][39][40][41][42], magnetic field [43,44], electric field [45][46][47], dopping [48,49], mechanical strain [50][51][52], and temperature variation [53,54]. Few-and multi-layer graphenes have been successfully produced by experimental methods such as exfoliation of highly orientated pyrolytic graphite [55][56][57][58], metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) [61][62][63][64][65][66], chemical and electrochemical reduction of graphene oxide [67][68][69], and arc discharge [70,71]. There exist important stacking configurations, including AAB [57,58,69], ABC [59,60,[66][67][68][69], AAA …”

“…Few-and multi-layer graphenes have been successfully produced by experimental methods such as exfoliation of highly orientated pyrolytic graphite [55][56][57][58], metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) [61][62][63][64][65][66], chemical and electrochemical reduction of graphene oxide [67][68][69], and arc discharge [70,71]. There exist important stacking configurations, including AAB [57,58,69], ABC [59,60,[66][67][68][69], AAA [62,63], ABA [60,61,66,69], and twisted [62,69] and turbostratic ones [64]. The interlayer atomic interactions and stacking configurations induce the rich electronic properties of graphene.…”

Combining graphene with silicon carbide: synthesis and properties – a review

“…[134]. Similarly to Hwang's report [135], these authors investigate how the graphitic phase covers the SiC surface depending on the CVD process duration. In particular three different stages were revealed: (i) a latency period during which the carbon supply and deposition rate are very low; (ii) a second period associated with beginning of the graphene phase nucleation and (iii) a third period characterized by a drastic increase in graphene thickness.…”

“…Probably, the first results on CVD growth of graphene on SiC were reported by Hwang et al [135]. In particular, the indications of graphene formation on C-face on-axis 6H-SiC substrate by the propane-assisted CVD process were experimentally demonstrated by using…”

“…The most widely studied among the carbon sources is propane [114,121,124,126,[128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136][137]. There is only a few works devoted to ethene [125], toluene [127] and xylene [127] as carbon sources for graphene growth on silicon carbide.…”