Mess-Free Graphene Growth

Single layers of carbon atoms, called graphene sheets, are lightweight, strong, electrically semiconducting – and notoriously difficult and expensive to make.

Now, a Cornell research team has invented a simple way to make graphene electrical devices by growing the graphene directly onto a silicon wafer.

A conceptual illustration of an array of graphene transistors having the thickness of one single carbon atom. (Image: Shivank Garg/Cornell)

Graphene has off-the-charts electrical properties and remarkable strength, despite its one-atom-thick sheets, so it often is hailed as potentially supplanting silicon in electronics. But making it in large quantities is a challenge, and scientists have turned to methods as crude as using Scotch tape to pull off a layer of graphene from graphite, the material found in pencil lead. Such a technique for producing graphene never would survive manufacturing, especially since it would create varying numbers of layers at random positions.

“You can imagine trying to peel a piece of shrink-wrap off a dish to put it on a new dish – it’s going to be messy,” said lead researcher Jiwoong Park, Cornell assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology.

Inspired by previous work in which scientists grew graphene on copper foil, the team grew the graphene directly onto silicon wafers coated with a special evaporated copper film. They cut the graphene films into the desired shapes using such standard methods as photolithography, then removed the underlying copper with a chemical solution. What was left was a graphene film that draped down over the silicon wafer with little defect.

“Once the graphene is made on top of this wafer, you can apply any thin-film processing technique,” Park said.

The team now is experimenting with growing full-scale, 4-in. graphene wafers to further demonstrate the manufacturing potential of graphene-based electronics.

The paper’s first author is Mark P. Levendorf, a graduate student in chemistry, and co-authors are Carlos S. Ruiz-Vargas, a graduate student in applied and engineering physics, and Shivank Garg (’10), an undergraduate majoring in chemistry. The work was funded by DARPA and the Cornell Center for Materials Research.

The work was published online Oct. 27 in the journal Nano Letters.

For more information, visit: www.cornell.edu