April 12, 2012 — The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan is using its AIXTRON SE BM 300 system to grow monolayer graphene on 300mm wafers. The tool offers a sophisticated gas system for precursor delivery, in-situ wafer thermal mapping (ARGUS), uniform wafer heating, and automated wafer handling.
The AIXTRON BM 300 was installed in 2011 in AIST’s super cleanroom facility in Tsukuba, Japan.
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| Image 1. Fumio Yoshida and Andy Newham (AIXTRON) holding a 300mm graphene wafer. |
Earlier this year, UT Austin researchers demonstrated high-quality, wafer-scale graphene deposition on evaporated copper films, using an AIXTRON cold-wall vertical BM (Black Magic) Pro reactor. And AIXTRON sold 2 BM Pro 4"-wafer deposition tools to the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) for graphene work.
Controllable, repeatable graphene deposition on 300mm wafers is necessary for “large wafer-scale integration of graphene,” enabling next-generation semiconductor devices based on the nano-material, said Dr. Ken Teo, Director of Nanoinstruments at AIXTRON.
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| Image 2. AIXTRON BM 300 with automated wafer handler. |
The team, under Dr. Shintaro Sato, group leader at AIST, will use the system to deposit high-quality graphene with a controlled number of layers. The work will go into creating low-voltage-operation complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) field-effect transistors (FETs), in which the power supply voltage will be less than 0.3V.
Dr. Shintaro Sato, AIST, presented the growth results on April 10 at the 2012 MRS Spring Meeting.
The research is backed by the Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST), which aims to encourage cutting-edge research and development that will strengthen Japan’s international competitiveness and contribute to society and people’s welfare by sharing the results. The FIRST Program was approved by the Council for Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan in 2009, and is being operated by the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
Wafer processing is being carried out at AIST’s Collaborative Research Team Green Nanoelectronics Center (GNC) within the research project ‘Development of Core Technologies for Green Nanoelectronics’ (core researcher Dr. Naoki Yokoyama), which has been adopted for the FIRST Program. The GNC was established in April 2010 and comprises research and industry.
AIXTRON provides MOCVD production technologies for semiconductor devices, such as LEDs, lasers, transistors and solar cells. For further information on AIXTRON (FSE: AIXA, ISIN DE000A0WMPJ6, DE000A1MMEF7; NASDAQ: AIXG, ISIN US0096061041), see www.aixtron.com.