Ultrahigh-mobility semiconducting epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide

Jian Zhao, Peixuan Ji, Yaqi Li, Rui Li, Kaimin Zhang, Hao Tian, Kaicheng Yu, Boyue Bian, Luzhen Hao, Xue Xiao, Will Griffin, Noel Dudeck, Ramiro Moro, Lei Ma () and Walt A. Heer ()
Additional contact information
Jian Zhao: Tianjin University
Peixuan Ji: Tianjin University
Yaqi Li: Tianjin University
Rui Li: Tianjin University
Kaimin Zhang: Tianjin University
Hao Tian: Tianjin University
Kaicheng Yu: Tianjin University
Boyue Bian: Tianjin University
Luzhen Hao: Tianjin University
Xue Xiao: Tianjin University
Will Griffin: School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Noel Dudeck: School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Ramiro Moro: Tianjin University
Lei Ma: Tianjin University
Walt A. Heer: Tianjin University

Nature, 2024, vol. 625, issue 7993, 60-65

Abstract: Abstract Semiconducting graphene plays an important part in graphene nanoelectronics because of the lack of an intrinsic bandgap in graphene1. In the past two decades, attempts to modify the bandgap either by quantum confinement or by chemical functionalization failed to produce viable semiconducting graphene. Here we demonstrate that semiconducting epigraphene (SEG) on single-crystal silicon carbide substrates has a band gap of 0.6 eV and room temperature mobilities exceeding 5,000 cm2 V−1 s−1, which is 10 times larger than that of silicon and 20 times larger than that of the other two-dimensional semiconductors. It is well known that when silicon evaporates from silicon carbide crystal surfaces, the carbon-rich surface crystallizes to produce graphene multilayers2. The first graphitic layer to form on the silicon-terminated face of SiC is an insulating epigraphene layer that is partially covalently bonded to the SiC surface3. Spectroscopic measurements of this buffer layer4 demonstrated semiconducting signatures4, but the mobilities of this layer were limited because of disorder5. Here we demonstrate a quasi-equilibrium annealing method that produces SEG (that is, a well-ordered buffer layer) on macroscopic atomically flat terraces. The SEG lattice is aligned with the SiC substrate. It is chemically, mechanically and thermally robust and can be patterned and seamlessly connected to semimetallic epigraphene using conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques. These essential properties make SEG suitable for nanoelectronics.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06811-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:625:y:2024:i:7993:d:10.1038_s41586-023-06811-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06811-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().