Graphene growth on SiC and other substrates using carbon sources

Direct deposition of graphene from carbon sources on foreign substrates without the use of metal catalysts is shown to be an effective process with several advantages over other growth techniques. Carbon source molecular beam epitaxy (CMBE) in particular provides an additional control parameter in carbon flux and enables growth on substrates other than SiC, including oxidized Si and sapphire. CMBE using thermally evaporated C 60 and a heated graphite filament on SiC is reported here. The graphene films were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and Hall effect. Graphene films on Si-face SiC grown using the C 60 source have Bernal-like stacking and n-type conduction while those grown using the graphite filament have turbostratic stacking and p-type conduction. The sheet concentration for both n- and p-type doping is linearly dependent on film thickness.