| Posted: July 23, 2008 |
First successful fabrication of a graphene-on-silicon structure |
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(Nanowerk News) Researchers led by Maki Suemitsu (Tohoku Univ.) have succeeded in fabricating a graphene-on-Si structure for the first time.
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Graphene (monolayers of graphite) has a unique electronic structure which endows it with high electron mobility, an order of magnitude larger than that of crystalline Si. Although this has been known since 2004, researchers have used a very rudimentary method to produce graphene; namely, they used an adhesive tape to peel a graphene layer off graphite and then placed it on a substrate.
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The team pursed a different avenue and formed at first an extremely thin (80nm) SiC layer on Si. The trick was the use of a Si(110) substrate, rather than the conventional (100 ) to overcome the 20% lattice-mismatch between Si and SiC. This technique has allowed the growth of 3C-SiC(111) layers with strain smaller by a factor of 1/4. Heat treatment of the sample converted the surface to graphene.
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This achievement may pave the way for the application of graphene to VLSI. The research was done in the "Research of Innovative Material and Processes for Creation of Next-Generation Electronic Devices" project , headed by Hisatsune Watanabe of SELETE, within the CREST program of Japan Science and Technology Corporation.
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Original announcement: http://www.jst.go.jp/pr/announce/20080624/index.html
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