Epitaxial electrical contact to graphene on SiC

T. Le Quang (1) , L. Huder (1) , F. Lipp Bregolin (1) , Alexandre Artaud (2, 1) , A. Okuno (3) , S. Pouget (4) , N. Mollard (3) , G. Lapertot (5) , A. G. M. Jansen (1) , F Lefloch (1) , E. F. C. Driessen (6) , C Chapelier (1) , V. T. Renard (1)

1 LaTEQS - Laboratoire de Transport Electronique Quantique et Supraconductivité
2 NEEL - Quan2m - Interactions modulables dans des états quantiques 2D
3 LEMMA - Laboratoire d'Etude des Matériaux par Microscopie Avancée
4 SGX - Service Général des Rayons X
5 IMAPEC - Instrumentation, Material and Correlated Electrons Physics
6 IRAM - Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimétrique

Establishing good electrical contacts to nanoscale devices is a major issue for modern technology and contacting 2D materials is no exception to the rule. One-dimensional edge-contacts to graphene were recently shown to outperform surface contacts but the method remains difficult to scale up. We report a resist-free and scalable method to fabricate few graphene layers with electrical contacts in a single growth step. This method derives from the discovery reported here of the growth of few graphene layers on a metallic carbide by thermal annealing of a carbide forming metallic film on SiC in high vacuum. We exploit the combined effect of edge-contact and partially-covalent surface epitaxy between graphene and the metallic carbide to fabricate devices in which low contact-resistance and Josephson effect are observed. Implementing this approach could significantly simplify the realization of large-scale graphene circuits.

Mots clés: electrical contact; superconductivity; graphene

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Systèmes mésoscopiques et effet Hall quantique [cond-mat.mes-hall]

T. Le Quang, L. Huder, F. Lipp Bregolin, Alexandre Artaud, A. Okuno, et al.. Epitaxial electrical contact to graphene on SiC. Carbon, 2017, 121, pp.48-55. ⟨10.1016/j.carbon.2017.05.048⟩. ⟨hal-01522904⟩