High quality graphene formation on 3C-SiC/4H-AIN/Si heterostructure

The growth of graphene on 3C-SiC/Si heterostructure is a promising approach, which provides low production cost, high scalability and easiness of nano-electro-mechanical system fabrication. However, the quality of graphene is still insufficient for device applications due to mediocre morphological and structural quality of the 3C-SiC epilayers compared to bulk SiC crystals and to excessive Si out-diffusion from the Si substrate. Here, we propose a solution of inserting a 4H-A1N layer between 3C-SiC and Si, which allows us to polish the 3C-SiC film without enhancement of the Si out-diffusion despite the thinning of the 3C-SiC. With this insertion, a considerable quality improvement is achieved in our graphene-on-silicon.