Highly p-doped epitaxial graphene obtained by fluorine intercalation

We present a method for decoupling epitaxial graphene grown on SiC(0001) by intercalation of a layer of fluorine at the interface. The fluorine atoms do not enter into a covalent bond with graphene but rather saturate the substrate Si bonds. This configuration of the fluorine atoms induces a remarkably large hole density of p≈4.5×1013 cm−2, equivalent to the location of the Fermi level at 0.79 eV above the Dirac point ED.