Towards an Accurate Measurement of Thermal Contact Resistance at Chemical Vapor Deposition-Grown Graphene/SiO2 Interface Through Null Point Scanning Thermal Microscopy

Abstract

In the development of graphene-based electronic devices, it is crucial to characterize the thermal contact resistance between the graphene and the substrate precisely. In this study, we demonstrate that the thermal contact resistance between CVD-grown graphene and SiO2 substrate can be obtained by measuring the temperature drop occurring at the graphene/SiO2 interface with null point scanning thermal microscopy (NP SThM), which profiles the temperature distribution quantitatively with nanoscale spatial resolution (similar to 50 nm) without the shortcomings of the conventional SThM. The thermal contact resistance between the CVD-grown graphene and SiO2 substrate is measured as (1.7 +/- 0.27) x 10(-6) m(2)K/W. This abnormally large thermal contact resistance seems to be caused by extrinsic factors such as ripples and metal-based contamination, which inevitably form in CVD-grown graphene during the production and transfer processes.