title: Towards wafer-size graphene layers by atmospheric pressure graphitization of silicon carbide.
abstract: Graphene, a single monolayer of graphite, has recently attracted considerable interest owing to its novel magneto-transport properties, high carrier mobility and ballistic transport up to room temperature. It has the potential for technological applications as a successor of silicon in the post Moore's law era, as a single-molecule gas sensor, in spintronics, in quantum computing or as a terahertz oscillator. For such applications, uniform ordered growth of graphene on an insulating substrate is necessary. The growth of graphene on insulating silicon carbide (SiC) surfaces by high-temperature annealing in vacuum was previously proposed to open a route for large-scale production of graphene-based devices. However, vacuum decomposition of SiC yields graphene layers with small grains (30-200 nm; refs 14-16). Here, we show that the ex situ graphitization of Si-terminated SiC(0001) in an argon atmosphere of about 1 bar produces monolayer graphene films with much larger domain sizes than previously attainable. Raman spectroscopy and Hall measurements confirm the improved quality of the films thus obtained. High electronic mobilities were found, which reach mu=2,000 cm (2) V(-1) s(-1) at T=27 K. The new growth process introduced here establishes a method for the synthesis of graphene films on a technologically viable basis.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Technische Physik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erwin-Rommel-Str. 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Konstantin V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Emtsev
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bostwick
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Horn
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jobst
authors.forename: Gary L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Kellogg
authors.forename: Lothar
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ley
authors.forename: Jessica L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: McChesney
authors.forename: Taisuke
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohta
authors.forename: Sergey A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Reshanov
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Röhrl
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rotenberg
authors.forename: Andreas K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Waldmann
authors.forename: Heiko B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Seyller