Doping of Graphene by Low-Energy Ion Beam Implantation: Structural, Electronic, and Transport Properties

Abstract

We investigate the structural, electronic, and transport properties of substitutional defects in SiC-graphene by means of scanning tunneling microscopy and magnetotransport experiments. Using ion incorporation via ultralow energy ion implantation, the influence of different ion species (boron, nitrogen, and carbon) can directly be compared. While boron and nitrogen atoms lead to an effective doping of the graphene sheet and can reduce or raise the position of the Fermi level, respectively, C-12(+) carbon ions are used to study possible defect creation by the bombardment. For low-temperature transport, the implantation leads to an increase in resistance and a decrease in mobility in contrast to undoped samples. For undoped samples, we observe in high magnetic fields a positive magnetoresistance that changes to negative for the doped samples, especially for B-11(+)- and C-12(+)-ions. We conclude that the conductivity of the graphene sheet is lowered by impurity atoms and especially by lattice defects, because they result in weak localization effects at low temperatures.