Imaging the interface of epitaxial graphene with silicon carbide via scanning tunneling microscopy

Abstract

Graphene grown epitaxially on SiC has been proposed as a material for carbon-based electronics. Understanding the interface between graphene and the SiC substrate will be important for future applications. We report the ability to image the interface structure beneath single-layer graphene using scanning tunneling microscopy. Such imaging is possible because the graphene appears transparent at energies of 1 eV above or below the Fermi energy. Our analysis of calculations based on density functional theory shows how this transparency arises from the electronic structure of a graphene layer on a SiC substrate.

18 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• The interface structure of epitaxial graphene grown on 4H-SiC(0001)
• Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy of Graphene on Insulating Substrates
• Carbon rehybridization at the graphene/SiC(0001) interface: Effect on stability and atomic-scale corrugation
• Two Distinct Phases of Bilayer Graphene Films on Ru(0001)
• Preferential antiferromagnetic coupling of vacancies in graphene on SiO_2: Electron spin resonance and scanning tunneling spectroscopy