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A catalytic alloy approach for graphene on epitaxial SiC on silicon wafers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

Francesca Iacopi*
Affiliation:
Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia
Neeraj Mishra
Affiliation:
Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia
Benjamin Vaughan Cunning
Affiliation:
Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia
Dayle Goding
Affiliation:
Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia
Sima Dimitrijev
Affiliation:
Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia
Ryan Brock
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
Reinhold H. Dauskardt
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
Barry Wood
Affiliation:
Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
John Boeckl
Affiliation:
Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratories, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio 45433, USA
*
a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: f.iacopi@griffith.edu.au

Abstract

We introduce a novel approach to the synthesis of high-quality and highly uniform few-layer graphene on silicon wafers, based on solid source growth from epitaxial 3C-SiC films. Using a Ni/Cu catalytic alloy, we obtain a transfer-free bilayer graphene directly on Si(100) wafers, at temperatures potentially compatible with conventional semiconductor processing. The graphene covers uniformly a 2″ silicon wafer, with a Raman I D/I G band ratio as low as 0.5, indicative of a low defectivity material. The sheet resistance of the graphene is as low as 25 Ω/square, and its adhesion energy to the underlying substrate is substantially higher than transferred graphene. This work opens the avenue for the true wafer-level fabrication of microdevices comprising graphene functional layers. Specifically, we suggest that exceptional conduction qualifies this graphene as a metal replacement for MEMS and advanced on-chip interconnects with ultimate scalability.

Information

Type
Invited Feature Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2015 
Figure 0

FIG. 1. Schematic of the process steps for the preparation of graphene on epitaxial 3C-SiC on silicon. The starting substrate can be either a <100> or <111> oriented substrate (a), on which a single- or double-thin catalyst layer of Ni alone or Ni and Cu is deposited (b). An anneal at 1100 °C leads to the formation of a few-layer graphene covered with a metallic highly intermixed layer (c) that is subsequently removed by wet etching.

Figure 1

FIG. 2. Comparison of the defectivity of different graphenes on SiC preparations as estimated from the ratio of the intensities of the D over G Raman bands. The thickness of the Cu layer, when present, was kept constant. The error bar is calculated from the measurements variation over five different sites. The use of a Ni/Cu alloy leads to a remarkable decrease in defectivity. Graphene on SiC(100) shows consistently a slightly lower defect density than that on SiC(111).

Figure 2

FIG. 3. Example of Raman spectrum (graphene D, G, and 2D bands region) from graphene on SiC(100) prepared with ∼8 nm Ni and ∼15 nm Cu. Additionally to the low D over G band intensity, indicative of a good quality graphene, note that the 2D over G intensity ratio higher than 1 is indicative of a few-layer graphene. The Raman shift region for 3C-SiC is also shown.

Figure 3

TABLE I. Surface roughness comparison of different graphenes on SiC preparations. Note that the graphene prepared with Ni/Cu indicates a 50% decrease in RMS as compared to the use of Ni alone as a catalyst, and that the graphene roughness does not seem dependent on the orientation of the starting substrate. Note that the typical RMS roughness of the initial SiC surface is 2–3 nm.9

Figure 4

FIG. 4. Comparison of the spatial frequency spectra defining the surface topography of different graphenes on SiC preparations (power spectral densities), related to the AFM measurements in Table I. Note that the graphene prepared with Ni only has substantially more large (frequencies below 5 μm−1) as well as very small surface asperities as compared to the Ni/Cu preparations.

Figure 5

FIG. 5. (a) XPS surface survey spectrum and (b) high resolution spectrum of the C1s region of a graphene on SiC(100) prepared with Ni/Cu, corresponding to the Raman spectrum in Fig. 3. The C1s spectrum reveals a peak centered at 284.5 eV for the graphene, one 282.5 eV corresponding to the underlying SiC, plus lower intensity peaks at higher eV, attributed to C–O–Si, C–O, and C=O bonds.

Figure 6

FIG. 6. TEM micrograph of a graphene on SiC(100) prepared with Ni/Cu, corresponding to the Raman spectrum in Fig. 3. The small magnification image shows a region near the top surface of the epitaxial SiC. The dark region on top of the sample corresponds to the Au deposited during TEM preparation. The graphene is found just below the Au layer and on the top of an amorphous layer (inset), most probably originated from the SiC during the graphitization process. The graphene is found to be a distinctive bilayer.

Figure 7

FIG. 7. (a) Schematic of the sandwiched beam structure containing the graphene on SiC prepared for four point bend testing of the interfacial debonding energies. The structure comprises an additional sputtered Si layer and an adhesive layer for bonding of the mirroring silicon slab. (b) Example of a four point bend measurement for a graphene sample prepared with Ni/Cu. The near-steady state energy release rate plateau for this measurement corresponds to an average debonding energy of 6.4 J/m2.

Figure 8

FIG. 8. (a) Sheet resistance of the ∼1 nm thick graphene on SiC(100) prepared with Ni/Cu and measured on a 1 × 1 cm2 sample in a van der Pauw contact configuration. This sheet resistance corresponds to a resistivity of about 2 × 10−8 Ω m for the graphene, as low as bulk Au metal; (b) sheet resistance measured on the ∼23 nm Ni/Cu alloy as a reference.