Chaika, A.; Molodtsova, O.; Zakharov, A.; Marchenko, D.; Sánchez-Barriga, J.; Varykhalov, A.; Babenkov, S.; Portail, M.; Zielinski, M.; Murphy, B.; Krasnikov, S.; Lübben, O.; Shvets, I.; Aristov, V.: Rotated domain network in graphene on cubic-SiC(001). Nanotechnology 25 (2014), p. 135605/1-8
10.1088/0957-4484/25/13/135605
Open Access Version
Abstract:
The atomic structure of the cubic-SiC(001) surface during ultra-high vacuum graphene synthesis has been studied using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and low-energy electron diffraction. Atomically resolved STM studies prove the synthesis of a uniform, millimeter-scale graphene overlayer consisting of nanodomains rotated by ±13.5° relative to the 〈110〉-directed boundaries. The preferential directions of the domain boundaries coincide with the directions of carbon atomic chains on the SiC(001)-c(2 × 2) reconstruction, fabricated prior to graphene synthesis. The presented data show the correlation between the atomic structures of the SiC(001)-c(2 × 2) surface and the graphene/SiC(001) rotated domain network and pave the way for optimizing large-area graphene synthesis on low-cost cubic-SiC(001)/Si(001) wafers.