Regensburg 2013 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 91: Graphene: Preparation and Characterization II (jointly with HL, MA and TT)

O 91.4: Vortrag

Freitag, 15. März 2013, 11:15–11:30, H17

Etching Nanoscale tunnels into graphite- a new route to produce suspended graphene — •Maya Lukas¹, Velimir Meded¹, Aravind Vijayaraghavan^1,2, Li Song^3,4, Pulickel M. Ajayan⁴, Karin Fink¹, Wolfgang Wenzel¹, and Ralph Krupke^1,5 — ¹Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Nanotechnology, D-76021 Karlsruhe — ²School of Computer Science, The University of Manchester, UK — ³Research Center for Exotic Nanocarbons, Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan — ⁴Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Rice University, Houston, TX , USA — ⁵Department of Materials and Earth Sciences, Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64287 Darmstadt

Catalytic hydrogenation of graphite, although known since the 1970s, has recently attracted renewed attention, as a route for nano-patterning of graphene and to produce graphene nano-ribbons. These reports show that metallic nanoparticles etch surface layers of graphite or graphene anisotropically along the crystallographic zigzag <11-20> or armchair <1010> directions.

We report the sub-surface etching of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) by Ni nanoparticles, to form a network of tunnels, as seen by SEM and STM. The layers on top of tunnels which are only a few layers below the surface bend inward, while their local density of states remains fundamentally unchanged. Our work opens a new route to produce suspended graphene for the study of fundamental mechanical and electronic properties. M. Lukas, V. Meded et al., Nat. Commun. accepted for publication