Molecular beam epitaxial growth of graphene and ridge-structure networks of graphene

By gas-source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using cracked ethanol, we grew graphene at substrate temperatures between 600 and 915 °C on graphene formed on SiC(0 0 0 1) by thermal decomposition. To investigate the substrate temperature dependence of graphene growth we analysed the MBE-grown graphene by Raman spectroscopy and in situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and observed it by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Analyses using the G-band peak and the peak intensity ratio between D- and G-band peaks in the Raman spectra revealed that growth at higher temperatures improved the crystallinity and increased the domain size. Although the growth rate decreased at higher temperatures, as revealed by XPS, these results indicated that growth at a higher temperature is effective in obtaining graphene of higher quality. Furthermore, the AFM and TEM observations revealed a network of fin-like ridge structures of graphene sticking out from the surface. The presence of these 'graphene nanofins' indicated that two-dimensional islands of graphene are surrounded by the nanofins, and the island size was estimated to be 67 nm using the average distance between the nanofins.