Electron-Beam Direct Writing-Based High-Performance Graphene Electrode Fabrication

Graphene has attracted intensive attention in the field of nanoelectronics due to its excellent electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties, and graphene-based electronic devices emerge endlessly. However, with the miniaturization of devices and the improvement of circuit integration, the contact resistance between the metal electrode and graphene in the conventional graphene-based electronic devices largely reduces the carrier mobility and saturation drift speed due to the work function difference, which will greatly deteriorate the transport performance of the device. The high contact resistance can also cause device overheating and fast aging, consequently downgrading the upper bound of their performance. Therefore, hunting for an optimal electrode material and fabrication approach have been essential goals in the field. Here, we report a newly developed scheme that uses e-beam direct writing to make a high-performance three-dimensional graphene electrode, which can be applied in all carbon-based field effect transistors; the whole process was conducted in a hot filament scanning electron microscope. We systematically investigated all performance-processing parameter dependences and realized a resistivity of 8.85 x 10-4 Ocm of the graphene electrode, which has great application potential in developing all-carbon electronics.