Title: The epigraphene nanoelectronics platform: Ultrahigh mobility semiconducting epigraphene and the edge state
Speaker: Prof. Walter de Heer (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA)
Time: 10:30 AM, June 3 (Monday), 2024
Place: Dr. Poe Lecture Hall, IAMS (本所浦大邦講堂臺大校園內)
Contact: Dr. Mei-Yin Chou 周美吟院士
Epigraphene is graphene that it grows epitaxially on electronics grade silicon carbide substrates. The first epigraphene layer to grow on the silicon terminated face of hexagonal SiC is covalently bonded to the substrate and a semiconductor. However, conventional production methods cause disorder in the bonding to the substrate resulting in high density of low mobility states in the band gap making it unsuited for electronics. Recent production methods remedied this problem to produce bona fide semiconducting epigraphene (SEG) on near-macroscopic terraces with a room temperatures mobility exceeding 5000 cm2V-1s-1 [1] which is at least 20 larger than is theoretically possible with any other current 2D semiconductor. SEG is readily converted to quasi-freestanding graphene by intercalation of hydrogen and other materials as well [2].
The epigraphene edge state (EES) is a single channel (G=1 e2/h) zero-mode of epigraphene ribbons with extraordinary ballistic properties. Room temperature mean free paths (mfp) exceed 1 mm, in contrast the mfp of the epigraphene is ≈20 nm. The EES was first observed in 2010 on in epigraphene ribbons grown on sidewalls of SiC substrate steps and recently shown also to exist on planar SiC surfaces [3]. The EES does not generate a Hall voltage and pins the Fermi level at EF=0 so that EES transport involves the 0-energy flat band rather than the dispersing bands near E=0 as originally predicted (the latter do generate a Hall voltage and have conductances G=2 e2/h). The EES is also observed in quasi-freestanding graphene produced by hydrogen intercalation of SEG.
SEG overcomes the last remaining hurdle towards epigraphene electronics as first envisioned in 2001 [4]. Moreover, SiC is relatively inexpensive, compatible with current high density nanoelectronics fabrication methods, and THz frequencies. Combined with the EES, SEG is a strong contender for post-silicon nanoelectronics.
1. Zhou,J., et al, Ultra-high mobility semiconducting epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide, Nature, 625, 60 (2024)
2. Speck, F., et al., The quasi-free-standing nature of graphene on H-saturated SiC(0001). Applied Physics Letters, 99 2011
3. Prudkovskiy, V.S., et al., An epitaxial graphene platform for zero-energy edge state nanoelectronics. Nature Communications, 13: p. 7814 (2022)
Walt de Heer is a Dutch physicist and nanoscience researcher known for his work in the electronic shell structure of metal clusters, magnetism in transition metal clusters, field emission and ballistic conduction in carbon nanotubes, and the pioneering work in the electronic properties of epitaxial graphene since 2001. He earned a doctoral degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 under the supervision of Walter D. Knight. He worked at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland from 1987 to 1997, and he is currently a Regents' Professor of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He directs the Epitaxial Graphene Laboratory in the School of Physics and leads the Epitaxial Graphene Interdisciplinary Research Group at Georgia Tech. He received the MRS Medal for pioneering contributions to the science and technology of epitaxial graphene from the Materials Research Society in 2010. His reasech publications can be found at
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=klW4cOMAAAAJ.