High contrast imaging and thickness determination of graphene with in-column secondary electron microscopy

Abstract

We report a new method for quantitative estimation of graphene layer thicknesses using high contrast imaging of graphene films on insulating substrates with a scanning electron microscope. By detecting the attenuation of secondary electrons emitted from the substrate with an in-column low-energy electron detector, we have achieved very high thickness-dependent contrast that allows quantitative estimation of thickness up to several graphene layers. The nanometer scale spatial resolution of the electron micrographs also allows a simple structural characterization scheme for graphene, which has been applied to identify faults, wrinkles, voids, and patches of multilayer growth in large-area chemical vapor deposited graphene. We have discussed the factors, such as differential surface charging and electron beam induced current, that affect the contrast of graphene images in detail.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Quenching of the luminescence intensity of GaN nanowires under electron beam exposure: Impact of C adsorption on the exciton lifetime
• Dynamic Imaging of Au-nanoparticles via Scanning Electron Microscopy in a Graphene Wet Cell
• Electrochemical integration of graphene with light absorbing copper-based thin films
• Thermal stability of monolayer $W{S}_2$ in BEOL conditions