Selective area growth of Bernal bilayer epitaxial graphene on 4H-SiC (0001) substrate by electron-beam irradiation

Abstract

We report selective area growth of large area homogeneous Bernal stacked bilayer epitaxial graphene (BLEG) on 4H-SiC (0001) substrate by electron-beam irradiation. Sublimation of Si occurs by energetic electron irradiations on SiC surface via breaking of Si–C bonds in the localized region, which allows the selective growth of graphene. Raman measurements ensure the formation of homogeneous BLEG with weak compressive strain of −0.08%. The carrier mobility of large area BLEG is ∼5100 cm2 V−1 s−1 with a sheet carrier density of 2.2 × 1013 cm−2. Current-voltage measurements reveal that BLEG on 4H-SiC forms a Schottky junction with an operation at mA level. Our study reveals that the barrier height at the Schottky junction is low (∼0.58 eV) due to the Fermi-level pinning above the Dirac point.