Understanding the growth mechanism of graphene on Ge/Si(001) surfaces

The practical difficulties to use graphene in microelectronics and optoelectronics is that the available methods to grow graphene are not easily integrated in the mainstream technologies. A growth method that could overcome at least some of these problems is chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of graphene directly on semiconducting (Si or Ge) substrates. Here we report on the comparison of the CVD and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of graphene on the technologically relevant Ge(001)/Si(001) substrate from ethene (C₂H₄) precursor and describe the physical properties of the films as well as we discuss the surface reaction and diffusion processes that may be responsible for the observed behavior. Using nano angle resolved photoemission (nanoARPES) complemented by transport studies and Raman spectroscopy as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we report the direct observation of massless Dirac particles in monolayer graphene, providing a comprehensive mapping of their low-hole doped Dirac electron bands. The micrometric graphene flakes are oriented along two predominant directions rotated by 30° with respect to each other. The growth mode is attributed to the mechanism when small graphene “molecules” nucleate on the Ge(001) surface and it is found that hydrogen plays a significant role in this process.

Presence of gapped silicene-derived band in the prototypical (3 × 3) silicene phase on silver (111) surfaces

By mapping the low-energy electronic dynamics using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), we have shed light on essential electronic characteristics of the (3 × 3) silicene phase on Ag(111) surfaces. In particular, our results show a silicene-derived band with a clear gap and linear energy-momentum dispersion near the Fermi level at the Γ symmetry point of the (3 × 3) phase at several distinctive Brillouin zones. Moreover, we have confirmed that the large buckling of ~0.7 Å of this silicene structure induces the opening of a gap close to the Fermi level higher than at least 0.3 eV, in agreement with recent reported photoemission results. The two-dimensional character of the charge carriers has also been revealed by the photon energy invariance of the gapped silicene band, suggesting a limited silicene-silver hybridization, in disagreement with recent density-functional theory (DFT) predictions.