  Integration of graphene with Si microelectronics is very appealing by
offering potentially a broad range of new functionalities. New materials to be
integrated with Si platform must conform to stringent purity standards. Here,
we investigate graphene layers grown on copper foils by chemical vapor
deposition and transferred to silicon wafers by wet etch and electrochemical
delamination methods with respect to residual sub-monolayer metallic
contaminations. Regardless of the transfer method and associated cleaning
scheme, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and total reflection
x-ray fluorescence measurements indicate that the graphene sheets are
contaminated with residual metals (copper, iron) with a concentration exceeding
10$^{13}$ atoms/cm$^{2}$. These metal impurities appear to be partly mobile
upon thermal treatment as shown by depth profiling and reduction of the
minority charge carrier diffusion length in the silicon substrate. As residual
metallic impurities can significantly alter electronic and electrochemical
properties of graphene and can severely impede the process of integration with
silicon microelectronics these results reveal that further progress in
synthesis, handling, and cleaning of graphene is required on the way to its
advanced electronic and optoelectronic applications.
