Low-Damage High-Throughput Grazing-Angle Sputter Deposition on Graphene

TL;DR

This paper introduces a grazing-incidence sputtering method that significantly reduces damage to graphene during thin film deposition, enabling high-quality dielectric films suitable for electronic device fabrication.

Contribution

The study systematically investigates sputtering-induced damage in graphene and develops a grazing-incidence technique that minimizes damage compared to traditional methods.

Findings

Grazing-incidence sputtering reduces graphene damage significantly.

The technique produces smooth, fully covered dielectric films.

Potential for improved graphene device fabrication processes.

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of sputter deposition in the microelectronics industry, it has seen very limited applications for graphene electronics. In this letter, we report systematic investigation of the sputtering induced damages in graphene and identify the energetic sputtering gas neutrals as the primary cause of graphene disorder. We further demonstrate a grazing-incidence sputtering configuration that strongly suppresses fast neutral bombardment and retains graphene structure integrity, creating considerably lower damage than electron-beam evaporation. Such sputtering technique yields fully covered, smooth thin dielectric films, highlighting its potential for contact metals, gate oxides, and tunnel barriers fabrication in graphene device applications.