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A wide-bandgap metal–semiconductor–metal nanostructure made entirely from graphene

Nature Physics volume 9, pages 49–54 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Present methods for producing semiconducting–metallic graphene networks suffer from stringent lithographic demands, process-induced disorder in the graphene, and scalability issues. Here we demonstrate a one-dimensional metallic–semiconducting–metallic junction made entirely from graphene. Our technique takes advantage of the inherent, atomically ordered, substrate–graphene interaction when graphene is grown on SiC, in this case patterned SiC steps, and does not rely on chemical functionalization or finite-size patterning. This scalable bottom-up approach allows us to produce a semiconducting graphene strip whose width is precisely defined to within a few graphene lattice constants, a level of precision beyond modern lithographic limits, and which is robust enough that there is little variation in the electronic band structure across thousands of ribbons. The semiconducting graphene has a topographically defined few-nanometre-wide region with an energy gap greater than 0.5 eV in an otherwise continuous metallic graphene sheet.

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Figure 1: The experimental geometry of measuring graphene on SiC trenches.
Figure 2: An ARPES view of the band structure of graphene grown on the sides of 12-nm-deep SiC trenches.
Figure 3: Different views of the nearly 1D gap semiconducting bent graphene.
Figure 4: Details of the facet sidewall graphene band structure near the K-point.
Figure 5: Local band structure changes on the sidewall facets.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank A. Zangwill for many useful discussions. This research was supported by the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Partner University Fund from the Embassy of France and the NSF under Grant Nos DMR-0820382 and DMR-1005880. We also wish to acknowledge the SOLEIL synchrotron radiation facilities and the Cassiopée beamline. J. Hicks also wishes to acknowledge support from the NSF-GRFP under Grant No. DGE-0644493.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0430, USA

    J. Hicks, M. S. Nevius, F. Wang, K. Shepperd, J. Palmer, J. Kunc, W. A. de Heer, C. Berger & E. H. Conrad

  2. Institut Jean Lamour, CNRS—Univ. de Nancy—UPV-Metz, 54506 Vandoeuvre les Nancy, France

    A. Tejeda

  3. Synchrotron SOLEIL, L’Orme des Merisiers, Saint-Aubin, 91192 Gif sur Yvette, France

    A. Tejeda, F. Bertran & P. Le Fèvre

  4. UR1 CNRS/Synchrotron SOLEIL, Saint-Aubin, 91192 Gif sur Yvette, France

    A. Taleb-Ibrahimi

  5. CNRS/Institut Néel, BP166, 38042 Grenoble, France

    C. Berger

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  1. J. Hicks
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Contributions

E.H.C. supervised the project, designed and carried out the experiment, analysed data and wrote the manuscript. J.H. and A.T. carried out the experiment, analysed data and edited the manuscript. A.T-I. organized the ARPES experiments and recorded data. C.B. and M.S.N. carried out the experiment and edited the manuscript. K.S., F.B. and P.L.F. helped run the ARPES experiments. F.W. analysed the data and edited the manuscript. J.P. helped prepare samples. W.A.d.H. and J.K. provided the theoretical band modelling and edited the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to E. H. Conrad.

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Hicks, J., Tejeda, A., Taleb-Ibrahimi, A. et al. A wide-bandgap metal–semiconductor–metal nanostructure made entirely from graphene. Nature Phys 9, 49–54 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2487

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