Harnessing graphene’s properties on a silicon platform could deliver a broad range of novel miniaturized and in-situ reconfigurable functionalities. We will review the learnings from the development of our epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide on silicon technology and some of its most promising applications. This platform allows to obtain any complex graphene -coated silicon carbide 3D nanostructures in a site – selective fashion at the wafer -scale and with sufficient adhesion for integration [1, 2]. Key capabilities for nano-optics and metasurfaces in the MIR are specifically unlocked by the graphene/silicon carbide combination [3].
We have recently demonstrated that the sheet resistance of epitaxial graphene on 3C-SiC on silicon is comparable to that of epitaxial graphene on SiC wafers, despite substantially smaller grains. We also indicate that the control of the graphene interfaces, particularly when integrated, can be a more important factor than achieving large grain sizes [4]. In addition, we show that well- engineered defects in graphene are preferable to defect -free graphene for most electrochemical applications, including biosensing. Promising examples of application of this technology in the More- than -Moore domain include integrated energy storage [5], MIR sensing and detection [6], and sensors for electro-encephalography [7, 8] for brain-computer interfaces [9].
References:
[1] B.Cunning et al, Nanotechnology 25 (32), 325301, 2014 [2] F.Iacopi et al, Journal of Materials Research 30 (5), 609-616, 2015 [3] P.Rufangura e al, Journal of Physics: Materials 3 (3), 032005, 2020 [4] A.Pradeepkumar et al, ACS Applied Nano Materials 3 (1), 830-841, 2019 [5] M.Amjadipour, D.Su and F.Iacopi, Batteries & Supercaps 3 (7), 587-595, 2020 [6] P.Rufangura et al, Nanomaterials 11 (9), 2339, 2021 [7] S.Faisal et al, Journal of Neural Engineering 18 (6), 066035, 2021 [8] S.Faisal et al, ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 5, 8, 10137–10150, 2022 [9] F.Iacopi and CT Lin, Progress in Biomedical Eng. 2022, doi.org/10.1088/2516-1091/ac993d.