Resistivity of Rotated Graphite-Graphene Contacts

Nano Lett. 2016 Jul 13;16(7):4477-82. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b01657. Epub 2016 Jun 9.

Abstract

Robust electrical contact of bulk conductors to two-dimensional (2D) material, such as graphene, is critical to the use of these 2D materials in practical electronic devices. Typical metallic contacts to graphene, whether edge or areal, yield a resistivity of no better than 100 Ω μm but are typically >10 kΩ μm. In this Letter, we employ single-crystal graphite for the bulk contact to graphene instead of conventional metals. The graphite contacts exhibit a transfer length up to four-times longer than in conventional metallic contacts. Furthermore, we are able to drive the contact resistivity to as little as 6.6 Ω μm(2) by tuning the relative orientation of the graphite and graphene crystals. We find that the contact resistivity exhibits a 60° periodicity corresponding to crystal symmetry with additional sharp decreases around 22° and 39°, which are among the commensurate angles of twisted bilayer graphene.

Keywords: Graphene; commensurate angles; contact resistivity; graphite.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't