Low Temperature Critical Growth of High Quality Nitrogen Doped Graphene on Dielectrics by Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

Abstract

Nitrogen doping is one of the most promising routes to modulate the electronic characteristic of graphene. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) enables low-temperature graphene growth. However, PECVD growth of nitrogen doped graphene (NG) usually requires metal-catalysts, and to the best of our knowledge, only amorphous carbon-nitrogen films have been produced on dielectric surfaces by metal-free PECVD. Here, a critical factor for metal-free PECVD growth of NG is reported, which allows high quality NG crystals to be grown directly on dielectrics like SiO2/Si, Al2O3, h-BN, mica at 435 °C without a catalyst. Thus, the processes needed for loading the samples on dielectrics and n-type doping are realized in a simple PECVD, which would be of significance for future graphene electronics due to its compatibility with the current microelectronic processes.

Controllable Synthesis of Graphene by Plasma‐Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition and Its Related Applications

“…PECVD can achieve the controllable synthesis of the large‐area graphene on dielectric substrate. Recently, graphene has been grown on various substrates containing metals SiO 2 /Si sapp, hire, mica, h‐BN for applications in FETs 34, 39, 50, 52, 64, 125. PECVD grown graphene films on transition metals have similar growth process (dissolution precipitation and surface catalyzed dissociation) with thermal CVD grown graphene films, thus have comparable field effect motilities.…”

“…However, the amorphous nitrogen doped carbon film normally suffers from poor electrical transport and gate modulation due to its disordered structure. Recently, the crystal growth of nitrogen‐doped graphene (NG) has been achieved in NH 3 /CH 4 plasma 125. The FETs of NG are fabricated using the growth substrate as the dielectric and gate electrode.…”

“…b) Transfer characteristics of eight FETs based on CH 4 /NH 3 plasma‐enhanced grown NG and an FET based on H 2 /CH 4 plasma‐enhanced grown pristine graphene. Reproduced with permission 125. Copyright 2015, American Chemical Society.…”

Metal-catalyst-free growth of graphene on insulating substrates by ammonia-assisted microwave plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

“…26 Several PECVD studies have been reported on SiO 2 , 27-38 quartz, 27,31,38 glass, 34,39 and Al 2 O 3 28,38 to explore the synthesis of graphene without metal catalysts at low temperature. Successful enlargement of isolated grain sizes has been realized using twostep growth in PECVD process.…”

“…[28][29][30] Other groups tried to grow continuous graphene using PECVD. However, these lms suffered from common problems such as many defects, less surface uniformity, [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] and three-dimensional (3D) nanowall growth.…”