AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Graphene Topical Conference Tuesday Sessions
       Session GR-TuP

Paper GR-TuP3
Edge Structures of Graphene Nano-Patches Grown on the 6H-SiC(0001) Surface

Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 6:00 pm, Room Hall 3

Session: Graphene Topical Conference Poster Session
Presenter: W. Kim, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Republic of Korea
Authors: I. Kim, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Republic of Korea
C. Hwang, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Republic of Korea
W. Kim, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Republic of Korea
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Graphene nanoribbons (GNR) are currently considered as one of the most promising materials for future nanoelectronic devices due to its exceptional physical properties . We investigated the possibility of the growth of GNR on the vicinal 6H-SiC(0001) surface using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. We observed the formation of the ribbon-like single-layer graphenes with sharp edge structures at the initial stage of thermal graphitization process of the SiC(0001) surface. However, the overall long-range ordering of the steps of the bare vicinal surface was found out to be lost during graphitization process, and only the local short range ordering of the steps with graphene layer patches existed on the entire surface. From the atom-resolved STM images, we clearly identified the armchair and zigzag edge structure for several ribbon-like graphene nanostructures, and found out that the zigzag structure were more frequently observed than the armchair structure. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy experiment was also carried out over the graphene nano-patches to examine the local electronic states at the edge structures.