Flower-shaped domains and wrinkles in trilayer epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide.

ABSTRACT: Trilayer graphene is of particular interest to the 2D materials community because of its unique tunable electronic structure. However, to date, there is a lack of fundamental understanding of the properties of epitaxial trilayer graphene on silicon carbide. Here, following successful synthesis of large-area uniform trilayer graphene, atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed that the trilayer graphene on 6H-SiC(0001) was uniform over a large scale. Additionally, distinct defects, identified as flower-shaped domains and isolated wrinkle structures, were observed randomly on the surface using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM/STS). These carbon nanostructures formed during growth, has different structural and electronic properties when compared with the adjacent flat regions of the graphene. Finally, using low temperature STM/STS at 4K, we found that the isolated wrinkles showed an irreversible rotational motion between two 60° configurations at different densities of states.

SUBMITTER: Lalmi B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3920218 | biostudies-other | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other