Growth of Graphene on SiC(111) Surfaces via Ion-Beam Irradiation

We used scanning tunneling microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy to investigate the influence of ion-beam irradiation on the growth of graphene on 3C-SiC(111) surfaces via the SiC surface decomposition method. When the SiC(111) surface was irradiated with Ar+ ions, the surface bonds of the SiC(111) surfaces were broken. After annealing the SiC surface with an Ar+-ion beam at an accelerating voltage of 1 keV and an incident angle of 70 degrees, we obtained graphene with few defects. However, in the case of Ar+-ion-beam irradiation at 60 degrees, the resulting graphene layers exhibited high defect concentrations. We observed that the Si defect and breakage of bonds in the surface region promotes the formation of graphene layers and that the destruction of the deep layers of SiC substrate prevents the growth of graphene.