ABSTRACT
Graphene possesses astonishing electronic properties, which are highly promising for use in electronic and photonic devices. This chapter focuses on the synthesis and characterization of single- and few-layer graphene on cubic-SiC(001)/Si(001) wafers in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV). It presents a brief overview of different methods of graphene fabrication. The chapter reviews the published studies of the atomic and electronic structure of the graphene overlayers on SiC(001) surfaces. It also presents the results demonstrating transport properties of graphene synthesized on the vicinal SiC(001) substrate. The synthesized few-layer graphene demonstrates the properties of the quasi-freestanding graphene. The continuous few-layer graphene coverage on SiC(001) consists of rotated nanodomains with several preferential lattice orientations. Such nanodomain system with a periodic structure along the boundaries can produce a charge transport gap in the gapless, semimetallic graphene.
