Direct growth of globally aligned graphene nanoribbons on reconstructed sapphire substrate using PECVD

Mingzhi Zou; Weiming Liu; Yue Yu; Shanshan Wang; Bo Xu; Liu Qian; Tianze Tong; Jin Zhang

doi:10.1007/s12274-022-4797-1

Nano Research 2023, 16(1): 62-69 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4797-1

Research Article | Issue | Published: 06 September 2022

Direct growth of globally aligned graphene nanoribbons on reconstructed sapphire substrate using PECVD

Show Author's Information Hide Author's Information Mingzhi Zou^{¹^,^§}, Weiming Liu^{¹^,^§}, Yue Yu^¹, Shanshan Wang^², Bo Xu^¹, Liu Qian^¹, Tianze Tong^¹, Jin Zhang^¹(

)

1College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Beijing Science and Engineering Center for Nanocarbons, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

2Science and Technology on Advanced Ceramic Fibers and Composites Laboratory, College of Aerospace Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410000, China

^§ Mingzhi Zou and Weiming Liu contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:

sapphire, graphene nanoribbon (GNR), global alignment, insulating substrates, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD)

Topics:

Graphene nanoribbon

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Zou M, Liu W, Yu Y, et al. Direct growth of globally aligned graphene nanoribbons on reconstructed sapphire substrate using PECVD. Nano Research, 2023, 16(1): 62-69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4797-1

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Abstract

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are regarded as an ideal candidate for beyond-silicon electronics. However, synthesis of aligned GNR arrays on insulating substrates with high efficiency is challenging. In this work, we develop a facile strategy, involving KOH pre-treatment and high-temperature annealing, to construct parallel steps on the two-fold symmetry a-plane sapphire substrate. Horizontal GNRs as narrow as 15.1 nm with global alignment across a region of 20 mm² are then grown on the step edge-enriched substrate through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method. GNRs align well along the atomic steps on sapphire ([ $1 \bar{1} 00$ ] direction) with their widths and densities swiftly adjustable by step morphology modification on substrate surface. A step-edge confined growth mechanism is proposed, attributing the constraint on the nanoribbon broadening to a relatively low growth temperature in PECVD, which restrains the activation energy to suppress GNRs across step edges on sapphire and prevents detrimental nanoribbon widening. The results provide a new perspective for scalable synthesizing well aligned nanoribbons of other two-dimensional materials.

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Direct growth of globally aligned graphene nanoribbons on reconstructed sapphire substrate using PECVD

Show Author's information Hide Author's Information Mingzhi Zou^{¹^,^§}, Weiming Liu^{¹^,^§}, Yue Yu^¹, Shanshan Wang^², Bo Xu^¹, Liu Qian^¹, Tianze Tong^¹, Jin Zhang^¹(

)

1College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Beijing Science and Engineering Center for Nanocarbons, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

2Science and Technology on Advanced Ceramic Fibers and Composites Laboratory, College of Aerospace Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410000, China

^§ Mingzhi Zou and Weiming Liu contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Keywords: sapphire, graphene nanoribbon (GNR), global alignment, insulating substrates, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD)

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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 25 May 2022

Revised: 28 June 2022

Accepted: 20 July 2022

Published: 06 September 2022

Issue date: January 2023

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Nos. 2016YFA0200100 and 2018YFA0703502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52021006, 51720105003, 21790052, and 21974004), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB36030100), and the Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (No. BNLMS-CXTD-202001).