High Electron Mobility in Epitaxial Graphene on 4H-SiC(0001) via post-growth annealing under hydrogen

Abstract

We investigate the magneto-transport properties of epitaxial graphene single-layer on 4H-SiC(0001), grown by atmospheric pressure graphitization in Ar, followed by H ₂ intercalation. We directly demonstrate the importance of saturating the Si dangling bonds at the graphene/SiC(0001) interface to achieve high carrier mobility. Upon successful Si dangling bonds elimination, carrier mobility increases from 3 000 cm ²V ⁻¹s ⁻¹ to >11 000 cm ²V ⁻¹s ⁻¹ at 0.3 K. Additionally, graphene electron concentration tends to decrease from a few 10 ¹² cm ⁻² to less than 10 ¹² cm ⁻². For a typical large (30 × 280 μm ²) Hall bar, we report the observation of the integer quantum Hall states at 0.3 K with well developed transversal resistance plateaus at Landau level filling factors of ν = 2, 6, 10, 14… 42 and Shubnikov de Haas oscillation of the longitudinal resistivity observed from about 1 T. In such a device, the Hall state quantization at ν = 2, at 19 T and 0.3 K, can be very robust: the dissipation in electronic transport can stay very low, with the longitudinal resistivity lower than 5 mΩ, for measurement currents as high as 250 μA. This is very promising in the view of an application in metrology.