Abstract
The development of a scalable and cost-effective nanofabrication method is of key importance for future advances in nanoelectronics. Thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) is a growing nanopatterning method with potential for parallelization, offering unique capabilities that make it an attractive candidate for industrial nanomanufacturing. Here, we demonstrate the possibility to apply t-SPL for the fabrication of graphene devices. In particular, we use t-SPL to produce high performing graphene-based field effect transistors (FETs). The here described t-SPL process includes the fabrication of high-quality metal contacts, as well as patterning and etching of graphene to define the active region of the device. The electrical measurements on the t-SPL fabricated FETs indicate a symmetric conductance at the Dirac point and a low specific contact resistance without the use of any contact engineering strategy. The entire t-SPL nanofabrication process is performed without the need for masks, and in ambient conditions. Furthermore, thanks to the t-SPL in situ simultaneous patterning and imaging capability, no markers are required. These features substantially decrease fabrication time and cost.
Highlights
We report the application of thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) performed in ambient conditions for the fabrication of graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs)
Monolayer graphene in both channel and contact regions is in direct contact with the t-SPL resist during all the lithographic steps
Without the use of contact engineering, we find that the GFETs fabricated using t-SPL exhibit a relatively low specific contact resistance of 600 Ω⋅μm
Summary
Novel nano-patterning techniques have been explored for fabricating nanoscale devices.[12,13,14,15] Among those, thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) is an attractive choice for multiple reasons.[12,16,17,18,19,20] First, t-SPL is a maskless technique and is capable of patterning nanoscale features with sub-10 nm resolution.[17,21] Second, the entire t-SPL nano-patterning process can take place in atmospheric condition or N2, which is a considerable advantage for achieving a cost-effective nano-patterning process. The fabrication of graphene functional devices generally requires multiple patterning steps for defining the device active region and patterning metal contacts on graphene. More importantly, a recent study has demonstrated that t-SPL can pattern high-performing and low-resistance metal contacts on monolayer MoS2.24 the application of t-SPL for the fabrication of graphene devices remains largely unexplored.
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