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- ItemSynthesis of quasi-free-standing bilayer graphene nanoribbons on SiC surfaces(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Oliveira, Myriano H., Jr.; Lopes, Joao Marcelo J.; Schumann, Timo; Galves, Lauren A.; Ramsteiner, Manfred; Berlin, Katja; Trampert, Achim; Riechert, HenningScaling graphene down to nanoribbons is a promising route for the implementation of this material into devices. Quantum confinement of charge carriers in such nanostructures, combined with the electric field-induced break of symmetry in AB-stacked bilayer graphene, leads to a band gap wider than that obtained solely by this symmetry breaking. Consequently, the possibility of fabricating AB-stacked bilayer graphene nanoribbons with high precision is very attractive for the purposes of applied and basic science. Here we show a method, which includes a straightforward air annealing, for the preparation of quasi-free-standing AB-bilayer nanoribbons with different widths on SiC(0001). Furthermore, the experiments reveal that the degree of disorder at the edges increases with the width, indicating that the narrower nanoribbons are more ordered in their edge termination. In general, the reported approach is a viable route towards the large-scale fabrication of bilayer graphene nanostructures with tailored dimensions and properties for specific applications.
- ItemA hybrid MBE-based growth method for large-area synthesis of stacked hexagonal boron nitride/graphene heterostructures(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Wofford, Joseph M.; Nakhaie, Siamak; Krause, Thilo; Liu, Xianjie; Ramsteiner, Manfred; Hanke, Michael; Riechert, Henning; Lopes, J.; Marcelo, J.Van der Waals heterostructures combining hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and graphene offer many potential advantages, but remain difficult to produce as continuous films over large areas. In particular, the growth of h-BN on graphene has proven to be challenging due to the inertness of the graphene surface. Here we exploit a scalable molecular beam epitaxy based method to allow both the h-BN and graphene to form in a stacked heterostructure in the favorable growth environment provided by a Ni(111) substrate. This involves first saturating a Ni film on MgO(111) with C, growing h-BN on the exposed metal surface, and precipitating the C back to the h-BN/Ni interface to form graphene. The resulting laterally continuous heterostructure is composed of a top layer of few-layer thick h-BN on an intermediate few-layer thick graphene, lying on top of Ni/MgO(111). Examinations by synchrotron-based grazing incidence diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and UV-Raman spectroscopy reveal that while the h-BN is relaxed, the lattice constant of graphene is significantly reduced, likely due to nitrogen doping. These results illustrate a different pathway for the production of h-BN/graphene heterostructures, and open a new perspective for the large-area preparation of heterosystems combining graphene and other 2D or 3D materials.
- ItemMetal - Insulator transition driven by vacancy ordering in GeSbTe phase change materials(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Bragaglia, Valeria; Arciprete, Fabrizio; Zhang, Wei; Mio, Antonio Massimiliano; Zallo, Eugenio; Perumal, Karthick; Giussani, Alessandro; Cecchi, Stefano; Boschker, Jos Emiel; Riechert, Henning; Privitera, Stefania; Rimini, Emanuele; Mazzarello, Riccardo; Calarco, RaffaellaPhase Change Materials (PCMs) are unique compounds employed in non-volatile random access memory thanks to the rapid and reversible transformation between the amorphous and crystalline state that display large differences in electrical and optical properties. In addition to the amorphous-to-crystalline transition, experimental results on polycrystalline GeSbTe alloys (GST) films evidenced a Metal-Insulator Transition (MIT) attributed to disorder in the crystalline phase. Here we report on a fundamental advance in the fabrication of GST with out-of-plane stacking of ordered vacancy layers by means of three distinct methods: Molecular Beam Epitaxy, thermal annealing and application of femtosecond laser pulses. We assess the degree of vacancy ordering and explicitly correlate it with the MIT. We further tune the ordering in a controlled fashion attaining a large range of resistivity. Employing ordered GST might allow the realization of cells with larger programming windows.
- ItemCoincident-site lattice matching during van der Waals epitaxy(London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Boschker, Jos E.; Galves, Lauren A.; Flissikowski, Timur; Lopes, Joao Marcelo J.; Kiemer, Alexandra K.; Riechert, Henning; Calarco, RaffaellaVan der Waals (vdW) epitaxy is an attractive method for the fabrication of vdW heterostructures. Here Sb2Te3 films grown on three different kind of graphene substrates (monolayer epitaxial graphene, quasi freestanding bilayer graphene and the SiC (6√3 × 6√3)R30° buffer layer) are used to study the vdW epitaxy between two 2-dimensionally (2D) bonded materials. It is shown that the Sb2Te3 /graphene interface is stable and that coincidence lattices are formed between the epilayers and substrate that depend on the size of the surface unit cell. This demonstrates that there is a significant, although relatively weak, interfacial interaction between the two materials. Lattice matching is thus relevant for vdW epitaxy with two 2D bonded materials and a fundamental design parameter for vdW heterostructures.