Drawing graphene nanoribbons on SiC by ion implantation

We describe a straightforward technique for selective graphene growth and nanoribbon production onto 4H- and 6H-SiC. The technique presented is as easy as ion implanting regions where graphene layers are desired followed by annealing to 100°C below the graphitization temperature ( T G ) of SiC. We find that ion implantation of SiC lowers the T G , allowing selective graphene growth at temperatures below the T G of pristine SiC and above T G of implanted SiC. This results in an approach for patterning device structures ranging from a couple tens of nanometers to microns in size without using conventional lithography and chemical processing.