Interface structure of epitaxial graphene grown on 4H-SiC(0001)

Abstract

We present a structural analysis of the graphene-4HSiC(0001) interface using surface x-ray reflectivity. We find that the interface is composed of an extended reconstruction of two SiC bilayers. The interface directly below the first graphene sheet is an extended layer that is more than twice the thickness of a bulk SiC bilayer ($\ensuremath{\sim}1.7\text{ }\text{\AA{}}$ compared to $0.63\text{ }\text{\AA{}}$). The distance from this interface layer to the first graphene sheet is much smaller than the graphite interlayer spacing but larger than the same distance measured for graphene grown on the $(000\overline{1})$ surface, as predicted previously by ab initio calculations.