Among the many anticipated applications of graphene, some - such as transistors for Si microelectronics - would greatly benefit from the possibility to deposit graphene directly on a semiconductor grown on a Si wafer. We report that Ge(001) layers on
Si(001) wafers can be uniformly covered with graphene at temperatures between 800{deg}C and the melting temperature of Ge. The graphene is closed, with sheet resistivity strongly decreasing with growth temperature, weakly decreasing with the amount of deposited C, and reaching down to 2 kOhm/sq. Activation energy of surface roughness is low (about 0.66 eV) and constant throughout the range of temperatures in which graphene is formed. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the major physical processes affecting the growth are: (1) substitution of Ge in surface dimers by C, (2) interaction between C clusters and Ge monomers, and (3) formation of chemical bonds between graphene edge and Ge(001), and that the processes 1 and 2 are surpassed by CH$_{2}$ surface diffusion when the C atoms are delivered from CH$_{4}$. The results of this study indicate that graphene can be produced directly at the active region of the transistor in a process compatible with the Si technology.
We demonstrate molecular beam growth of graphene on biotite mica substrates at temperatures below 1000{deg}C. As indicated by optical and atomic force microscopy, evaporation of carbon from a high purity solid-state source onto biotite surface result
s in the formation of single-, bi-, and multilayer graphene with size in the micrometer regime. Graphene grown directly on mica surface is of very high crystalline quality with the defect density below the threshold detectable by Raman spectroscopy. The interaction between graphene and the mica substrate is studied by comparison of the Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy data with the corresponding results obtained for graphene flakes mechanically exfoliated onto biotite substrates. Experimental insights are combined with density functional theory calculations to propose a model for the initial stage of the van der Waals growth of graphene on mica surfaces. This work provides important hints on how the direct growth of high quality graphene on insulators can be realized in general without exceeding the thermal budget limitations of Si technologies.
