Abstract
Present methods for producing semiconducting–metallic graphene networks suffer from stringent lithographic demands, process-induced disorder in the graphene, and scalability issues. Here we demonstrate a one-dimensional metallic–semiconducting–metallic junction made entirely from graphene. Our technique takes advantage of the inherent, atomically ordered, substrate–graphene interaction when graphene is grown on SiC, in this case patterned SiC steps, and does not rely on chemical functionalization or finite-size patterning. This scalable bottom-up approach allows us to produce a semiconducting graphene strip whose width is precisely defined to within a few graphene lattice constants, a level of precision beyond modern lithographic limits, and which is robust enough that there is little variation in the electronic band structure across thousands of ribbons. The semiconducting graphene has a topographically defined few-nanometre-wide region with an energy gap greater than 0.5 eV in an otherwise continuous metallic graphene sheet.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank A. Zangwill for many useful discussions. This research was supported by the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Partner University Fund from the Embassy of France and the NSF under Grant Nos DMR-0820382 and DMR-1005880. We also wish to acknowledge the SOLEIL synchrotron radiation facilities and the Cassiopée beamline. J. Hicks also wishes to acknowledge support from the NSF-GRFP under Grant No. DGE-0644493.
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E.H.C. supervised the project, designed and carried out the experiment, analysed data and wrote the manuscript. J.H. and A.T. carried out the experiment, analysed data and edited the manuscript. A.T-I. organized the ARPES experiments and recorded data. C.B. and M.S.N. carried out the experiment and edited the manuscript. K.S., F.B. and P.L.F. helped run the ARPES experiments. F.W. analysed the data and edited the manuscript. J.P. helped prepare samples. W.A.d.H. and J.K. provided the theoretical band modelling and edited the paper.
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Hicks, J., Tejeda, A., Taleb-Ibrahimi, A. et al. A wide-bandgap metal–semiconductor–metal nanostructure made entirely from graphene. Nature Phys 9, 49–54 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2487
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2487
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