Influence of Substrate on the Epitaxial Graphene on SiC*

Epitaxial graphene on SiC has been an active and promising research field for graphene electronics. The sidewall graphene nanoribbons (GNR) directly grown on the Si-face of SiC surface steps are especially attractive, showing exceptional room temperature single channel ballistic transport [1]. Despite the keen interest in the sidewall GNRs, understanding of the influence of the nonpolar SiC facets on which they grow is still lacking. Here we report on the investigation of graphene grown on non-polar facets and substrate effects on the graphene growth and properties. Various types of non-polar facets have been used. The resulting graphene was extensively characterized by Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, low energy electron diffraction and various other tools.
[1] J. Baringhaus et al. Nature 506, 349 (2014).