| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2014) | |
| Thin Films | Thursday Sessions |
| Session TF-ThM |
| Session: | Graphene |
| Presenter: | Valeria del Campo, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa María, Chile |
| Authors: | V.d.C. del Campo, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa María, Chile R.H. Henríquez, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile P.H. Häberle, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa María, Chile |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
To grow our samples, first we heat the substrate (ruthenium crystal) in UHV. Once the desired temperature has been reached, the substrate is exposed to ethylene for some minutes. After exposure, the sample is annealed to allow the formation of carbon structures on the substrate. We performed this process with two different sets of parameters, obtaining different carbon structures on the Ru(0001) surface.
With one set of parameters we obtained graphene sheets on the ruthenium surface. With the second set of parameters we also grew a graphene layer, but on top of this layer we grew carbon nanodiscs. The diameters of these discs vary from few to hundreds nanometers, while their height is always below 1 nm.
The growth of carbon nanodiscs could be explained not only by the different set of parameters but also by the presence of impurities on the ruthenium surface. These impurities enable a preferential nucleation around them. This carbon excess allows the formation of carbon nanodiscs under the CVD conditions used in this experiment.