AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Graphene and Related Materials Focus Topic Monday Sessions
       Session GR+EM+NS+PS+SS+TF-MoM

Invited Paper GR+EM+NS+PS+SS+TF-MoM8
Graphene Growth Studied with LEEM, PEEM, EELS, ARPES, MEIS, and STM

Monday, October 29, 2012, 10:40 am, Room 13

Session: Graphene Growth
Presenter: R.M. Tromp, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Authors: R.M. Tromp, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
J.B. Hannon, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
M.W. Copel, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
S.-H. Ji, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
F.M. Ross, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
We have studied the growth of graphene on a variety of substrates, including SiC (both Si and C terminated), polycrystalline Cu and Ni foils, as well as single-crystal Ni foils. Low Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM) and Photo Electron Emission Microscopy (PEEM) offer the unique opportunity to follow the growth in real time, as it proceeds at high temperature, and in the presence of processing gases such as disilane (for growth on SiC) or ethylene (for growth on the metal substrates). Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) allows us to determine crystallographic orientations as well as atomic structure of areas well below a micrometer in extent. Information on electronic structure can be obtained from the plasmon loss features using Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS), or from Angle Resolved Photo Electron Spectroscopy (ARPES). These spectroscopic experiments are carried out in the LEEM/PEEM microscope using an in-line energy filter with which energy and angle resolved analysis of the electrons can be performed on selected areas. Finally, to obtain information on the layer-by-layer evolution of the graphene films, particularly on SiC, we have used isotope sensitive Medium Energy Ion Scattering (MEIS), to follow the growth by thermal decomposition of 12C vs 13C graphene monolayers from a three-bilayer thick Si13C homoepitaxial film grown on a SiC substrate. Taken together, these results provide a comprehensive view of the growth of graphene films. In this talk, we will review the most salient results of these studies, and their relevance to the use of graphene films for electronic applications. To address the latter, we will discuss the results of three-probe STM experiments in which we measured the excess resistivity of a graphene sheet as it crosses an atomic step of the underlying substrate.