MD simulation of H2 plasma/graphene interaction for innovative etching processes development

Graphène est un matériau bidimensionnel unique physique, chimique et les propriétés mécaniques. Il pourrait être prometteur pour de nouvelles applications, mais le contrôle nm échelle de traitement de graphène défis la technologie actuelle, en particulier dans le traitement du plasma, empêchant ainsi le développement de la technologie à base de graphène à l'échelle industrielle.Graphene is a two-dimensional material with unique physical, chemical and mechanical properties. It could be promising for novel applications, but the nm-scale control of graphene processing challenges current technology, especially in plasma treatment, thus preventing the development of graphene based technology at industrial scale. The main issue associated with plasma/graphene processes is the atomic thickness of the material: graphene is easily damaged upon exposure to reactive plasma. One critical question to answer then: is it possible to use conventional plasma technologies to pattern/clean/dope graphene layers, as is done for other materials in the microelectronic industry?Hydrogen plasmas have been shown to be promising for graphene treatment with minimal damages, but little is known about the fundamental mechanisms involved in graphene etching. Thus, in our work, we applied classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of H2 plasma/graphene interaction to assist the development of three important processes. First, MD allowed us to explain the lateral etching mechanisms of graphene nanorribons (GNR) in downstream H2 plasmas, which is an important technological step to produce GNR with a width