| 1. |
- Antoniazzi, Igor, et al.
(författare)
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Oxygen intercalated graphene on SiC(0001) : Multiphase SiOx layer formation and its influence on graphene electronic properties
- 2020
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Ingår i: Carbon. - : Elsevier BV. - 0008-6223. ; 167, s. 746-759
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Low-dimensionality materials are highly susceptible to interfaces. Indeed, intercalation of different chemical species in between epitaxial graphene and silicon carbide (SiC), for instance, may decouple the graphene with respect to the substrate due to the conversion of the buffer layer into a graphene layer. O-intercalation is known to release the strain of such 2D material and to lead to the formation of high structural quality AB-stacked bilayer graphene. Nonetheless, this interface transformation concomitantly degrades graphene electronic transport properties. In this work we employed different techniques in order to better understand the structure of the graphene/SiC interface generated by O-intercalation and to elucidate the origin of the poor electronic properties of graphene. Experimental results revealed the formation of a SiO2 rich layer with a defective transition layer in between it and the SiC, which is characterized by the existence of silicon oxycarbide structures. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements revealed an extensive presence of electronic states just around the Fermi level all over the sample surface, which may suppress the charge carriers mobility around this region. According to theoretical calculations, such states are mainly due to the formation of silicon oxicarbides within the interfacial layer.
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| 2. |
- Bernardes, Yuri, et al.
(författare)
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Direct observation of large-area strain propagation on free-standing nanomembranes
- 2023
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Ingår i: Physical Review Materials. - 2475-9953. ; 7:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Investigations on epitaxial nanostructures with size of tens of nanometers have been a challenging issue for techniques that present high strain sensitivity but restricted spatial resolution. This is the case of recently developed x-ray nanoprobe techniques. Despite its inherent nondestructive character, submicron x-ray spots have only been successfully applied to the study of individual nanostructures which are either strain free or present extremely mild spatial lattice parameter gradients. Such limitation, with an uttermost barrier given by the diffraction limit, leads to voxel or pixel sizes between 5 and 10 nm obtained in coherent diffraction imaging or ptychographic reconstructions of real-space objects. Whenever the strain field of a nanostructure is successfully reconstructed from reciprocal space measurements, it cannot vary considerably in short distances since this would induce diffraction peak broadening and cause abrupt phase variations, leading to convergence issues on reconstruction algorithms. Here we show how epitaxial systems with large lattice mismatch and appreciable interfacial strain can be identified and directly analyzed throughout their strain field propagation in nanometer-thin crystalline membrane platforms, using the InGaAs/GaAs Stranski-Krastanov system as a model. The strain-induced footprint becomes observable along a few microns if the membrane thickness is comparable to the nanostructure size. It is possible to retrieve both interfacial strain and nanostructure size by probing individual objects.
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| 3. |
- Rodrigues-Junior, Gilberto, et al.
(författare)
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Direct observation of large strain through van der Waals gaps on epitaxial B i2 T e3 /graphite : Pseudomorphic relaxation and the role of B i2 layers on the B ix T ey topological insulator series
- 2020
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Ingår i: Physical Review Materials. - 2475-9953. ; 4:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Layered materials can usually grow without strain on top of distinct substrates if the only interaction between them is due to van der Waals forces. In such a scenario it would be expected that the heterointerface made up of weak bounds would not affect the overlayed material significantly for several large lattice-mismatched systems. Here we have studied the first stages of the heteroepitaxial growth of layered bismuth telluride topological insulator on top of highly oriented pyrolitic graphite (HOPG) by molecular beam epitaxy. Samples were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM), synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD), and micro-Raman spectroscopy. AFM images show hexagonal/triangular flat islands with exposed HOPG areas for the low coverage regime, and the lattice parameter of these Bi2Te3 structures were measured by XRD. The existence of pseudomorphic strain at the initial Bi2Te3 layers was retrieved by both XRD and Raman spectroscopy. We have found evidence that Bi2Te3 layers near the interface are subject to an in-plane compressive strain, leading to a pseudomorphic out-of-plane lattice expansion. Furthermore, the presence of Bi2Te3 islands locally distorts the topmost layer of HOPG, resulting in tensile strain which was measured by Raman spectroscopy. The observed relaxation of 0.1-0.2% for each van der Waals gap is used to calculate elastic constants of Bi2 bilayers, which are crucial building blocks for the formation of other BixTey topological insulator compounds. Finally, the impact of such a strain in Bi2Te3 electronic structure was investigated by density functional theory calculations. The results show that the band structure of this strained material remains unchanged at the center of the Brillouin zone, confirming the robustness of surface states, but it is consistently affected at the M and K zone edges.
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