On the kinetic barriers of graphene homo-epitaxy
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095 (United States)
- Department of Mathematics and Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095 (United States)
The diffusion processes and kinetic barriers of individual carbon adatoms and clusters on graphene surfaces are investigated to provide fundamental understanding of the physics governing epitaxial growth of multilayer graphene. It is found that individual carbon adatoms form bonds with the underlying graphene whereas the interaction between graphene and carbon clusters, consisting of 6 atoms or more, is very weak being van der Waals in nature. Therefore, small carbon clusters are quite mobile on the graphene surfaces and the diffusion barrier is negligibly small (∼6 meV). This suggests the feasibility of high-quality graphene epitaxial growth at very low growth temperatures with small carbon clusters (e.g., hexagons) as carbon source. We propose that the growth mode is totally different from 3-dimensional bulk materials with the surface mobility of carbon hexagons being the highest over graphene surfaces that gradually decreases with further increase in cluster size.
- OSTI ID:
- 22402393
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 105, Issue 22; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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