Rigid substrate process to achieve high mobility in graphene field-effect transistors on a flexible substrate

The performance of graphene field effect transistors fabricated on flexible substrates is easily degraded by deformation, delamination and shrinkage during the device fabrication. Multiple thermal annealing on graphene devices could be performed without damages to the flexible substrate using a rigid supporting substrate, poly(dimethylsiloxane) coated Si, holding the flexible substrate during the device fabrication. As a result, a very high performance including electron mobility similar to 12980 and hole mobility similar to 9214 cm(2)/Vs could be achieved. The performance enhancement is attributed to the effective removal of polymer residues using a high temperature vacuum anneal and a reduced interfacial reaction between the graphene and the hydrophobic flexible substrate. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.