Improvement in Film Quality of Epitaxial Graphene on SiC(111)/Si(111) by SiH_4 Pretreatment

摘要

The epitaxy of graphene on 3C-SiC/Si (GOS) has attracted much attention owing to its viability to fuse graphene with Si-based technologies. It is known that the surface condition of the 3C-SiC thin film before graphitization plays a decisive role in determining the quality of the GOS film. We have investigated the effect of the pretreatment of the 3C-SiC thin film in vacuo at a SiH_4 partial pressure of 6.7 ×10~(-4) Pa on the subsequent formation of graphene. As a result, it is revealed that the SiH_4 pretreatment restores the defects on the SiC surface, such as the Si vacancy and point defects formed by the presence of native oxides, and improves the quality of graphene. The effect is found to be highest when the substrate temperature is 1173K.