Epitaxial graphenes on silicon carbide

Abstract

This article reviews the materials science of graphene grown epitaxially on the hexagonal basal planes of SiC crystals and progress toward the deterministic manufacture of graphene devices. We show that the growth of epitaxial graphene on Si-terminated SiC(0001) differs from growth on the C-terminated SiC(0001̄) surface, resulting in, respectively, strong and weak coupling to the substrate and to successive graphene layers. Monolayer epitaxial graphene on either surface displays the expected electronic structure and transport characteristics of graphene, but the non-graphitic stacking of multilayer graphene on SiC(0001) determines an electronic structure much different from that of graphitic multilayers on SiC(0001). This materials system is rich in subtleties, and graphene grown on the two polar faces of SiC 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.