Revealing interfacial disorder at the growth-front of thick many-layer epitaxial graphene on SiC: a complementary neutron and X-ray scattering investigation

Mazza, A. R.; Miettinen, A.; Daykin, A. A.; He, X.; Charlton, T. R.; Conrad, M.; Guha, S.; Lu, Q.; Bian, G.; Conrad, E. H.; Miceli, P. F.

doi:10.1039/C9NR03504D

Title: Revealing interfacial disorder at the growth-front of thick many-layer epitaxial graphene on SiC: a complementary neutron and X-ray scattering investigation

Journal Article · 22 July 2019 · Nanoscale

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C9NR03504D · OSTI ID:1546505

Mazza, A. R. ^[1]; Miettinen, A. ^[2]; Daykin, A. A. ^[1]; He, X. ^[1];

^[3]; Conrad, M. ^[2];

^[1]; Lu, Q. ^[1]; Bian, G. ^[1]; Conrad, E. H. ^[2];

^[1]

Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO (United States)
Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Spallation Neutron Source (SNS)

Epitaxial graphene on SiC provides both an excellent source of high-quality graphene as well as an architecture to support its application. Although single-layer graphene on Si-face SiC has garnered extensive interest, many-layer graphene produced on C-face SiC could be significantly more robust for enabling applications. Little is known, however, about the structural properties related to the growth evolution at the buried interface for thick many-layer graphene. Using complementary X-ray scattering and neutron reflectivity as well as electron microscopy, we demonstrate that thick many-layer epitaxial graphene exhibits two vastly different length-scales of the buried interface roughness as a consequence of the Si sublimation that produces the graphene. Over long lateral length-scales the roughness is extremely large (hundreds of Å) and it varies proportionally to the number of graphene layers. In contrast, over much shorter lateral length-scales we observe an atomically abrupt interface with SiC terraces. Graphene near the buried interface exhibits a slightly expanded interlayer spacing (~1%) and fluctuations of this spacing, indicating a tendency for disorder near the growth front. Nevertheless, Dirac cones are observed from the graphene while its domain size routinely reaches micron length-scales, indicating the persistence of high-quality graphene beginning just a short distance away from the buried interface. Discovering and reconciling the different length-scales of roughness by reflectivity was complicated by strong diffuse scattering and we provide a detailed discussion of how these difficulties were resolved. The insight from this analysis will be useful for other highly rough interfaces among broad classes of thin-film materials.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1546505

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1544448

Journal Information:: Nanoscale, Journal Name: Nanoscale Journal Issue: 30 Vol. 11; ISSN NANOHL; ISSN 2040-3364

Publisher:: Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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