Effects of substrate orientation on the structural and electronic properties of epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001)

Abstract

We investigate graphene transport and structural properties as a function of silicon carbide (SiC) wafer orientation. Terrace step edge density is found to increase with wafer misorientation from SiC(0001). This results in a monotonic increase in average graphene thickness, as well as a 30% increase in carrier density and 40% decrease in mobility up to 0.45° miscut toward (11¯00). Beyond 0.45°, average thickness and carrier density continues to increase; however, carrier mobility is similar to low-miscut angles, suggesting that the interaction between graphene and SiC(0001) may be fundamentally different that of graphene/SiC(11¯0n).