Journal Article

Solid-source growth and atomic-scale characterization of graphene on Ag(111)

Mannix, Andrew J., Fisher, Brandon L., Guisinger, Nathan P., Iski, Erin V., Kiraly, Brian, Hersam, Mark C.

2013

Overview

Silver is a desirable platform for graphene growth because of the potential for hybrid graphene plasmonics and its emerging role as a preferred growth substrate for other two-dimensional materials, such as silicene. Here we demonstrate the direct growth of monolayer graphene on a single-crystal Ag(111) substrate. The inert nature of Ag has made it difficult to use for graphene synthesis using standard chemical vapour deposition techniques, which we have overcome by using an elemental carbon source. Atomic-scale scanning tunnelling microscopy reveals that the atomically clean graphene–silver substrate is free of organic residue and other contaminants. The dendritic graphene possesses a variety of edge terminations, many of which give rise to quantum interferences previously seen only on insulating substrates. This scattering supports spectroscopic evidence that the graphene electronic structure is minimally perturbed by the underlying silver, providing a new system in which graphene is decoupled from its growth substrate. The integration of graphene with silver offers the promise of combining the electronic and plasmonic properties of both materials. Here, Kiraly et al. achieve the growth of graphene on a silver substrate, with the graphene electronic structure only minimally affected by the silver.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 639/301/930/1032 / 639/301/930/12 / 639/925/357/918 / Carbon sources / Contaminants / Humanities and Social Sciences / multidisciplinary / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Silver / Substrates