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Large local lattice expansion in graphene adlayers grown on copper

Nature Materials volume 17, pages 450–455 (2018)Cite this article

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A Retraction to this article was published on 27 September 2018

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Abstract

Variations of the lattice parameter can significantly change the properties of a material, and, in particular, its electronic behaviour. In the case of graphene, however, variations of the lattice constant with respect to graphite have been limited to less than 2.5% due to its well-established high in-plane stiffness. Here, through systematic electronic and lattice structure studies, we report regions where the lattice constant of graphene monolayers grown on copper by chemical vapour deposition increases up to ~7.5% of its relaxed value. Density functional theory calculations confirm that this expanded phase is energetically metastable and driven by the enhanced interaction between the substrate and the graphene adlayer. We also prove that this phase possesses distinctive chemical and electronic properties. The inherent phase complexity of graphene grown on copper foils revealed in this study may inspire the investigation of possible metastable phases in other seemingly simple heterostructure systems.

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Fig. 1: Phase diagram of graphene overlayer lattice strain with respect to the surface lattice constant of substrates.
Fig. 2: Capability of nanoARPES to distinguish electronic inhomogeneity.
Fig. 3: Comparison of electronic and lattice structures.
Fig. 4: Moiré patterns in Phase 2 from ARPES and microLEED.
Fig. 5: Theoretical results obtained from DFT.

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Change history

  • 27 September 2018

    The authors unanimously wish to retract this Article due to their concerns about the interpretation of the low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) and diffraction (LEED) patterns reported in the manuscript. In this study, the authors used spatial and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to characterize graphene monolayers grown on copper foils, and observed regions of graphene adlayers with enhanced graphene/Cu interaction, higher Dirac cone doping level, moiré mini Dirac cones and large lattice expansion. All these properties have been clearly verified and reproduced by photoemission spectroscopy as well as explained by density functional theory. LEEM and LEED characterization were also carried out to confirm the existence of a moiré superlattice and lattice expansion, and the results were included in the main manuscript and Supplementary Information. On further analysis of the LEEM/LEED data, it seems that while the existence of a moiré superlattice can be corroborated, the conclusion of graphene lattice expansion (7%) based on spatially resolved ARPES determinations cannot be confirmed by the LEEM/LEED measurements. The authors realized that these measurements were collected from statistically non-representative areas of the sample. Moreover, the fact that the raw microLEED images bear an asymmetry factor of as much as 5% due to the instrumental aberration makes it impossible to estimate any compression or expansion of the same order. Consequently, their conclusion on the graphene lattice expansion can only be supported by the photoemission data. In view that more complete and reliable structural determinations should be conducted, all authors wish to retract this Article.

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Acknowledgements

The Synchrotron SOLEIL is supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), France. This work is supported by a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the ‘Investissements d’Avenir” program (Labex NanoSaclay, reference: ANR-10-LABX-0035), as well as the the French Ministère des affaires étrangères et européennes (MAEE), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) through the ICT-ASIA programme grant 3226/DGM/ATT/RECH. Y.C is grateful for the HKU Start-up Fund for New Staff and the research computing facilities offered by ITS, HKU. We thank S. Lorcy (beamline ANTARES, SOLEIL), D. Alamarguy (Centralesupelec) for the technical support, A. Ouerghi (CNRS, France) and Q. Wu (EPFL, Lausanne) for helpful discussions. We are also indebted to F. Borondics and C. Sandt (beamline SMIS, SOLEIL) for Raman measurement support, Y. Niu (Cardiff University), and S. Stanescu and R. Belkhou (beamline HERMES, SOLEIL) for LEEM/LEED measurement support and discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ANTARES Beamline, Synchrotron SOLEIL & Université Paris-Saclay, L’Orme des Merisiers, Gif sur Yvette CEDEX, France

    Chaoyu Chen, José Avila & Maria C. Asensio

  2. Group of Electrical Engineering-Paris, UMR CNRS 8507, CentraleSupélec, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay; Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, Gif-sur-Yvette CEDEX, France

    Hakim Arezki & Mohamed Boutchich

  3. IBS Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics (CINAP), Institute for Basic Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea

    Van Luan Nguyen, Fei Yao & Young Hee Lee

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Jiahong Shen & Yue Chen

  5. Department of Materials Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Jiahong Shen

  6. Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Marcin Mucha-Kruczyński

  7. Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Marcin Mucha-Kruczyński

  8. Department of Energy Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea

    Young Hee Lee

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Contributions

C.C., J.A. and M.B. performed the nanoARPES experiments. C.C. and J.A. managed the data analysis. C.C. drafted the manuscript with the input from M.B., M.M.-K., Y.C. and M.C.A. The growth and characterization process of the CVD graphene samples was developed by V.L.N., F.Y., Y.H.L. and H.A. J.S. and Y.C. performed DFT calculations with results shown in Fig. 5 and Supplementary Fig. 8. M.M.-K. contributed to the theoretical analysis presented in Supplementary Section 6 and its corresponding discussions in the main text. C.C. and M.C.A. discussed and decided the main strategies of the project. M.C.A. directed this research project. All authors discussed and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mohamed Boutchich, Yue Chen or Maria C. Asensio.

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Ten sections, ten figures, ten references.

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Chen, C., Avila, J., Arezki, H. et al. Large local lattice expansion in graphene adlayers grown on copper. Nature Mater 17, 450–455 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0053-1

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