Metal intercalation-induced selective adatom mass transport on graphene

Journal Article · Tue Mar 29 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Nano Research

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1039-4· OSTI ID:1253759

Liu, Xiaojie ^[1]; Wang, Cai -Zhuang ^[2]; Hupalo, Myron ^[2]; Lin, Hai -Qing ^[3]; Ho, Kai -Ming ^[2]; Thiel, Patricia A. ^[2]; Tringides, Michael C. ^[2]

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1. Northeast Normal Univ., Changchun (China)
2. Ames Lab. and Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
3. Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing (China)

Recent experiments indicate that metal intercalation is a very effective method to manipulate the graphene-adatom interaction and control metal nanostructure formation on graphene. A key question is mass transport, i.e., how atoms deposited uniformly on graphene populate different areas depending on the local intercalation. Using first-principles calculations, we show that partially intercalated graphene, with a mixture of intercalated and pristine areas, can induce an alternating electric field because of the spatial variations in electron doping, and thus, an oscillatory electrostatic potential. As a result, this alternating field can change normal stochastic adatom diffusion to biased diffusion, leading to selective mass transport and consequent nucleation, on either the intercalated or pristine areas, depending on the charge state of the adatoms.

• Research Organization: Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-07CH11358
• OSTI ID: 1253759
• Report Number(s): IS-J-8957; PII: 1039
• Journal Information: Nano Research, Vol. 9, Issue 5; ISSN 1998-0124
• Publisher: Springer
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
graphene
intercalation
electrostatic potential
selective adsorption
first-principle calculation