Nanoscale mapping of relativistic photocarrier transports in epitaxial graphene surface and edge states

We report the direct mapping of photo-transport properties of relativistic carriers generated on terrace-surface and terrace-edge structures of epitaxial graphene grown on silicon carbide. In this method, a conductive probe made a direct contact with epitaxial graphene and scanned the surface, allowing us to map the topography, current, and noise of graphene with nanoscale resolutions via a scanning noise microscopy. The maps were further analyzed by a two-dimensional network model to obtain the sheet-conductance (S□) and noise-source density (neff) distributions of epitaxial graphene. The topography image showed the formation of terraces, which could be attributed to the different decomposition rate of silicon atoms during the graphene growth. The terraces of graphene exhibited uniform S□, being separated by one-dimensional terrace-edges. Interestingly, terrace-edges exhibited a rather large neff with a power-law relationship of S□ ∝ neff−0.5, indicating a typical hopping conduction. However, in terrace-surfaces, sheet-conductance was nearly independent on neff, which was attributed to the relativistic nature of charge carriers unaffected by charge-trapping potential. Notably, under illumination, we observed the relativistic behavior of photocarriers in overall graphene terraces, presumably because photocarriers were generated through charge-transfer complexes formation at epitaxial graphene/substrate interface without the participation of noise-sources. Interestingly, we observed nearly homogeneous photoconductance and neff, which could be possibly due to the merger of one-dimensional edge-states into two-dimensional surface-states. The mapping of photoconductance and photo-traps provides valuable insights into the generation of relativistic photocarriers in epitaxial graphene. [Display omitted] •A conductive nanoprobe is utilized to map carrier transports of epitaxial graphene.•Epitaxial graphene grown on SiC-substrate has terrace structures, separated by edges.•Sheet-conductance and noise-source density maps show 2D surface and 1D edge states.•Carriers show relativistic and hopping transports in surface and edge, respectively.•In light, carriers in edge exhibit transition from hopping to relativistic transport.