Effect of Growth Pressure on Epitaxial Graphene Grown on 4H-SiC Substrates by Using Ethene Chemical Vapor Deposition

Shuxian Cai; Zhonghua Liu; Ni Zhong; Shengbei Liu; Xingfang Liu

doi:10.3390/ma8095263

Effect of Growth Pressure on Epitaxial Graphene Grown on 4H-SiC Substrates by Using Ethene Chemical Vapor Deposition

Materials (Basel). 2015 Aug 26;8(9):5586-5596. doi: 10.3390/ma8095263.

Authors

Shuxian Cai¹, Zhonghua Liu², Ni Zhong³, Shengbei Liu⁴, Xingfang Liu⁵

Affiliations

¹ National Research Center of Engineering Technology for Utilization of Functional Ingredients from Botanicals, Hunan Agriculture University, Changsha 410128, China. caisx@bjmu.edu.cn.
² National Research Center of Engineering Technology for Utilization of Functional Ingredients from Botanicals, Hunan Agriculture University, Changsha 410128, China. liu.zhonghua2258@gmail.com.
³ National Research Center of Engineering Technology for Utilization of Functional Ingredients from Botanicals, Hunan Agriculture University, Changsha 410128, China. 546033652zn@gmail.com.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials Science, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 912, Beijing 100083, China. liushengbei@semi.ac.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials Science, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 912, Beijing 100083, China. liuxf@semi.ac.cn.

Abstract

The Si(0001) face and C(000-1) face dependences on growth pressure of epitaxial graphene (EG) grown on 4H-SiC substrates by ethene chemical vapor deposition (CVD) was studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and micro-Raman spectroscopy (μ-Raman). AFM revealed that EGs on Si-faced substrates had clear stepped morphologies due to surface step bunching. However, This EG formation did not occur on C-faced substrates. It was shown by μ-Raman that the properties of EG on both polar faces were different. EGs on Si-faced substrates were relatively thinner and more uniform than on C-faced substrates at low growth pressure. On the other hand, D band related defects always appeared in EGs on Si-faced substrates, but they did not appear in EG on C-faced substrate at an appropriate growth pressure. This was due to the μ-Raman covering the step edges when measurements were performed on Si-faced substrates. The results of this study are useful for optimized growth of EG on polar surfaces of SiC substrates.

Keywords: 4H-SiC; chemical vapor deposition; epitaxial graphene; face dependences; growth pressure.