Excellent epitaxial graphene layers grown simply on SiC substrates and their characterisation

A few-layer-thick epitaxial graphene synthesised on both the up-side and the down-side surfaces of SiC wafers in an ultra-high vacuum annealing furnace is presented. The graphene grown on the down-side surfaces of the SiC wafers that contacted with a graphite pedestal resulted in a relatively lower sheet resistance along with less graphene layers, as compared with that of their up-side surfaces. Overall, the sheet resistance of the few-layer-thick graphene grown on the down-side was found to range from 200 to 3 Ω/□, depending on the annealing time.