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 (TG) of SiC. We find that ion implantation of SiC lowers the TG, allowing selective graphene growth at temperatures below the TG of pristine SiC and above TG 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.