Grain Boundaries in Graphene on SiC(000$\bar{1}$) Substrate

Abstract

Grain boundaries in epitaxial graphene on the SiC(000$\bar{1}$) substrate are studied using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. All investigated small-angle grain boundaries show pronounced out-of-plane buckling induced by the strain fields of constituent dislocations. The ensemble of observations allows to determine the critical misorientation angle of buckling transition ${\theta }_c=19\pm 2^{\circ }$. Periodic structures are found among the flat large-angle grain boundaries. In particular, the observed $\theta =33\pm 2^{\circ }$ highly ordered grain boundary is assigned to the previously proposed lowest formation energy structural motif composed of a continuous chain of edge-sharing alternating pentagons and heptagons. This periodic grain boundary defect is predicted to exhibit strong valley filtering of charge carriers thus promising the practical realization of all-electric valleytronic devices.

References in corpus (20)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• The electronic properties of graphene
• The SIESTA method for ab initio order-N materials simulation
• Efficient index handling of multidimensional periodic boundary conditions
• Large-Area Synthesis of High-Quality and Uniform Graphene Films on Copper Foils
• Valley contrasting physics in graphene: magnetic moment and topological transport
• Imaging Grains and Grain Boundaries in Single-Layer Graphene: An Atomic Patchwork Quilt
• Valley filter and valley valve in graphene
• Control and Characterization of Individual Grains and Grain Boundaries in Graphene Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition
• Electronic transport in polycrystalline graphene
• Anomalous Strength Characteristics of Tilt Grain Boundaries in Graphene
• Topological Defects in Graphene: Dislocations and Grain Boundaries
• Polycrystalline graphene and other two-dimensional materials
• Graphene valley filter using a line defect
• Cones, pringles, and grain boundary landscapes in graphene topology
• Few layers graphene on 6H-SiC(000-1): an STM study
• Structural and electronic properties of grain boundaries in graphite: Planes of periodically distributed point defects
• Controlled Growth of a Line Defect in Graphene and Implications for Gate-Tunable Valley Filtering
• Topological Aspects of Charge-Carrier Transmission across Grain Boundaries in Graphene
• Grain Boundary Buckling and Spin Glass Models of Disorder in Membranes

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Scaling Properties of Polycrystalline Graphene: A Review
• Electrical and thermal transport in coplanar polycrystalline graphene-hBN heterostructures
• Electronic transport across linear defects in graphene
• Strong long-range relaxations of structural defects in graphene simulated using a new semi-empirical potential
• Chemifriction and Superlubricity: Friends or Foes?
• Probing crystallinity of graphene samples via the vibrational density of states
• Structural dynamics of polycrystalline graphene
• Probing barrier transmission in ballistic graphene
• First Principles Study of Electronic Structure and Transport in Graphene Grain Boundaries
• Structural dynamics of a model of amorphous silicon
• Mapping electronic states of dual-parallel and symmetric zigzag grain boundaries of graphene on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite
• Sliding Over Graphene Grain Boundaries: A Step Towards Macroscale Superlubricity
• Localized electronic states at grain boundaries on the surface of graphene and graphite