Freestanding graphene writing on a silicon carbide wafer

Freestanding graphene on a trench has been fabricated extensively using a transfer process of chemical vapor deposition grown graphene. Here, we demonstrate that freestanding graphene can be grown directly on a trench without a transfer process. A shallow trench was made on a 6H–SiC(0001) wafer using a focused ion beam lithography. The shallow trench was heated to a high temperature under Ar atmosphere. The heat treatment made the shallow trench become deeper and wider. Subsequently, epitaxial graphene was floating on the trench, resulting in freestanding graphene, where underlying bulk SiC was self-etched after the growth of epitaxial graphene. The freestanding graphene on a trench was characterized using Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. Such freestanding graphene writing can be applied to semiconductor fabrication process of freestanding graphene devices without a transfer process.