Graphene investigated by synchrotron radiation

From the earliest days of graphene electronics, epitaxial graphene grown on SiC has been the focus of both academic and industrial research because it is potentially scalable to large electronic systems. Yet, epitaxial graphene electronics is still in its infancy. In the race to demonstrate devices, the fundamental work of understanding and controlling this material has just begun. It is entirely possible that graphene's potential for electronics lies in new ways of thinking about electronics. In that case, significant advances will come only after serious materials physics and engineering research. One of the arguably most important properties of epitaxial graphene is that it can be studied with a variety of analytical probes beyond electron-transport measurements. Synchrotron studies have been key to understanding a wide variety of properties, including the role of the graphene-SiC interface in graphene's transport properties, how the films are doped, whether and how a bandgap (critical to digital electronics) can be formed, and how metals and insulators can be grown on graphene for critical ohmic contacts and gate structures. These important studies are discussed in this review.