AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Graphene and Related Materials Focus Topic Monday Sessions
       Session GR+TF+ET-MoA

Invited Paper GR+TF+ET-MoA8
Graphene: Scratching the Surface

Monday, October 31, 2011, 4:20 pm, Room 208

Session: Graphene: Electronic Properties and Charge Transport
Presenter: Michael Fuhrer, University of Maryland at College Park
Correspondent: Click to Email
Graphene is of interest for its unique electronic structure: electrons in graphene obey the Dirac equation for massless particles, complete with a two-component spinor degree of freedom that mimics the spin of a relativistic particle. But graphene is also composed entirely of surface atoms, making the techniques of surface science useful in studying its properties. I will discuss experiments which combine ultra-high vacuum (UHV) surface science with electronic transport measurements to understand graphene and the adsorbed species on its surface. Surface science techniques can be used to controllably modify graphene’s properties: potassium atoms can be deposited to form charged impurity scatterers; ice can be deposited to modify the dielectric environment of graphene and tune the electron-electron interaction strength; and ion irradiation can be used to create atomic vacancies which act as Kondo impurities. Graphene’s transport properties are extraordinarily sensitive to surface adsorbates, and can be used to detect e.g. correlations in the positions of potassium atoms at concentrations below 1/1000th of a monolayer, and phase transitions in few-monolayer water.