Epitaxial Graphenes on Silicon Carbide

TL;DR

This review discusses the growth, structure, electronic properties, and device development of epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide, highlighting differences between Si- and C-terminated surfaces and progress toward high-frequency device fabrication.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of epitaxial graphene on SiC, emphasizing growth differences, electronic properties, and recent advancements in device applications.

Findings

Growth on Si-terminated SiC differs from C-terminated surfaces.

Epitaxial graphene exhibits all key features of ideal graphene.

Wafer-scale fabrication of multi-GHz devices has been achieved.

Abstract

The materials science of graphene grown epitaxially on the hexagonal basal planes of SiC crystals is reviewed. We show that the growth of epitaxial graphene on Si-terminated SiC(0001) is much different than growth on the C-terminated SiC(000 -1) surface, and discuss the physical structure of these graphenes. The unique electronic structure and transport properties of each type of epitaxial graphene is described, as well as progress toward the development of epitaxial graphene devices. This materials system is rich in subtleties, and graphene grown on the two polar faces differs in important ways, but all of the salient features of ideal graphene are found in these epitaxial graphenes, and wafer-scale fabrication of multi-GHz devices already has been achieved.