Loading…

Thermal Annealing of Graphene Implanted with Mn at Ultralow Energies: From Disordered and Contaminated to Nearly Pristine Graphene

Ultralow-energy (ULE) ion implantation is increasingly being explored as a method to substitutionally dope graphene. However, complex implantation-related effects such as defect creation and surface contamination, and how they can be minimized by thermal annealing, remain poorly understood. Here, we...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physical chemistry. C 2022-06, Vol.126 (25), p.10494-10505
Main Authors: Lin, Pin-Cheng, Villarreal, Renan, Bana, Harsh, Zarkua, Zviadi, Hendriks, Vince, Tsai, Hung-Chieh, Auge, Manuel, Junge, Felix, Hofsäss, Hans, Tosi, Ezequiel, Lacovig, Paolo, Lizzit, Silvano, Zhao, Wenjuan, Di Santo, Giovanni, Petaccia, Luca, De Feyter, Steven, De Gendt, Stefan, Brems, Steven, Pereira, Lino M. C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Ultralow-energy (ULE) ion implantation is increasingly being explored as a method to substitutionally dope graphene. However, complex implantation-related effects such as defect creation and surface contamination, and how they can be minimized by thermal annealing, remain poorly understood. Here, we address these open questions taking as the model case epitaxial graphene grown on Cu(111), which was subsequently ULE implanted with Mn at 40 eV and then studied as a function of annealing temperature under ultrahigh vacuum. While significant surface cleaning occurs at annealing temperatures as low as 200 °C, recovery from the implantation-induced disorder requires at least 525 °C. Upon high-temperature annealing, in the 600–700 °C range, the Mn atoms that were incorporated upon implantation as intercalated species (between graphene and the Cu surface) experience diffusion into the Cu layer, creating a subsurface alloy. Annealing at 700 °C restored implanted graphene to a nearly pristine state, with a well-ordered graphene lattice with substitutional Mn atoms and a well-defined Dirac cone. In addition to the insight into the complex physicochemical effects induced by thermal annealing, our results provide useful guidelines for future experimental studies on graphene that is modified (e.g., substitutionally doped) by using ULE ion implantation.
ISSN:1932-7447
1932-7455
DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.2c00855