Overcoming Secondary Nucleation of Misoriented Domains during Wafer-Scale Epitaxy of Single-Crystal Graphene on Ge(110)

Jacobberger, Robert M.; Miao, Zichun; Yu, Ka-Man; Lam, Yin Hei; Li, Zizhong; He, Yangchen; Wang, Jia; Su, Katherine A.; Pathaare, Yashwrdhan; Saraswat, Vivek; Rhodes, Daniel A.; Lagally, Max G.; Altman, Michael S.; Arnold, Michael S.

doi:10.1021/acsnano.5c04786

Overcoming Secondary Nucleation of Misoriented Domains during Wafer-Scale Epitaxy of Single-Crystal Graphene on Ge(110)

Journal Article · Thu May 29 00:00:00 EDT 2025 · ACS Nano

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c04786· OSTI ID:3015245

^[1]; Miao, Zichun ^[2]; ^[2]; Lam, Yin Hei ^[2]; Li, Zizhong ^[1]; He, Yangchen ^[1]; Wang, Jia ^[1]; ^[1]; Pathaare, Yashwrdhan ^[1]; ^[1]; ^[1]; Lagally, Max G. ^[1]; ^[2]; ^[1]

Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Kowloon (Hong Kong)

The wafer-scale synthesis of single-crystal graphene on technologically important substrates is a major challenge inhibiting the development of next-generation devices that harness the exceptional electronic, thermal, and mechanical properties of single-crystal graphene. Here, in this work, the factors controlling the domain orientation of graphene grown epitaxially on Ge(110) are elucidated, and this insight is utilized to produce graphene with minimal polycrystallinity. In the early stages of growth, most graphene islands have unidirectionally aligned lattices. However, we discover a secondary nucleation phenomenon in which misoriented graphene domains nucleate near/from the island edges, introducing defective grain boundaries and significantly increasing polycrystallinity throughout growth. We find that secondary nucleation occurs when islands grow over Ge steps, which form because of an interplay between the island growth and Ge surface topography evolution. Strategies for suppressing secondary nucleation are developed, enabling the synthesis of graphene in which the predominant crystal orientation has high coverage >99% and low rotational spread <0.6°. This work overcomes the irreproducibility of graphene epitaxy on Ge(110) reported in the literature, providing a route toward the large-area synthesis of single-crystal graphene on technologically useful semiconductors.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division (MSE)

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-03ER46028; SC0016007; SC0023866

OSTI ID:: 3015245

Journal Information:: ACS Nano, Journal Name: ACS Nano Journal Issue: 22 Vol. 19; ISSN 1936-086X; ISSN 1936-0851

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Overcoming Secondary Nucleation of Misoriented Domains during Wafer-Scale Epitaxy of Single-Crystal Graphene on Ge(110)

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