Evidence of atomically resolved 6×6 buffer layer with long-range order and short-range disorder during formation of graphene on 6H-SiC by thermal decomposition
- Resource Type
- Authors
- T. W. Hu; F. Ma; D. Y. Ma; D. Yang; X. T. Liu; K. W. Xu; Paul K. Chu
- Source
- Applied Physics Letters. 102:171910
- Subject
- Range (particle radiation)
Materials science
Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
Graphene
Thermal decomposition
Analytical chemistry
law.invention
Amorphous carbon
law
Chemical physics
Scanning tunneling microscope
Layer (electronics)
Pyrolysis
Graphene nanoribbons
- Language
- ISSN
- 1077-3118
0003-6951
Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is performed to study the formation mechanism of graphene on 6H-SiC by thermal decomposition in situ and the evolution of an atomically resolved 6×6 structure in the buffer layer is revealed. The long-range order of the 6×6 structure is maintained during growth, but the short-range arrangement changes with temperature. Based on STM images acquired at different voltages, a structure consisting of triangular silicon clusters with the 6×6 structure and filled by amorphous carbon atoms is proposed. The 6×6 silicon clusters serve as the template and amorphous carbon atoms provide the carbon source for graphene growth.