Characterization of graphene conductance using a microwave cavity

Published

January 9, 2019

Author(s)

Jan Obrzut, Keith White, Yanfei Yang, Randolph Elmquist

Abstract

Surface conductance of graphene films is investigated in a non-contact microwave cavity operating at 7.4543 GHz. This cavity technique characterizes specimens with high accuracy, without disruption of morphological integrity and without the processing required for definition and application of electrical contacts. The thickness of the conducting 2D material does not need to be explicitly known. Measurement results are illustrated for epitaxial mono-layer graphene formed on 4H-SiC(0001) wafers by annealing the substrate via high fidelity Si sublimation. We show that the resonant microwave cavity is sensitive to the surface conductance of atomically thin nano-carbon films. The method is applied to characterize diffusion of water through a thin film moisture barrier coated over epitaxial monolayer graphene. The monolayer graphene is lightly n-type doped and therefore the resulting surface resistance value becomes sensitive to complexation with p-type molecular dopants such as water in moisturized air. Our results suggest that coating graphene surface with 100 nm thick Parylene-C film serves as effective moisture barrier. The observed change in conductance of Parylene-C specimens after environmental stress is within 6% of the pre-test value and would satisfy the typical reliability requirements.

Proceedings Title

The 2018 IEEE 13th Nanotechnology Materials & Devices Conference (NMDC 2018)14-17 October 2018
Portland, Oregon, USA

Volume

IEEE NMDC 2018

Issue

INSPEC ACC No: 18374511

Conference Dates

October 14-17, 2018

Conference Location

Portland, OR, US

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/NMDC.2018.8605821

Local Download

Keywords

microwave cavity, surface conductance, epitaxial graphene, moisture barrier, molecular doping

Citation

Obrzut, J. , White, K. , Yang, Y. and Elmquist, R. (2019), Characterization of graphene conductance using a microwave cavity, The 2018 IEEE 13th Nanotechnology Materials & Devices Conference (NMDC 2018)14-17 October 2018 Portland, Oregon, USA, Portland, OR, US, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/NMDC.2018.8605821, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=926292 (Accessed October 31, 2024)