Determination of the adhesion energy of graphene on SiC(0001) via measurement of pleat defects

Wells, G.H.; Hopf, T.; Vassilevski, K.V.; Escobedo-Cousin, E.; Wright, N.G.; Horsfall, A.B.; Goss, J.P.; O'Neill, A.G.; Hunt, M.R.C.

doi:10.1063/1.4901941

Determination of the adhesion energy of graphene on SiC(0001) via measurement of pleat defects

Wells, G.H.; Hopf, T.; Vassilevski, K.V.; Escobedo-Cousin, E.; Wright, N.G.; Horsfall, A.B.; Goss, J.P.; O'Neill, A.G.; Hunt, M.R.C.

Authors

G.H. Wells

T. Hopf

K.V. Vassilevski

E. Escobedo-Cousin

N.G. Wright

Professor Alton Horsfall alton.b.horsfall@durham.ac.uk
Professor

J.P. Goss

A.G. O'Neill

Dr Michael Hunt m.r.c.hunt@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Abstract

Pleat defects in graphene grown on SiC(0001) were studied and used to determine the adhesion energy between few-layer graphene (3 ± 1 monolayers) and the substrate. An adhesion energy of 3.0±1.61.0J/m2 was determined using a continuum model describing the buckling of the film and delamination. The continuum model used can be applied to any graphene-substrate system in which pleat formation occurs due to differences in thermal expansion. The large value of adhesion energy observed for graphene on SiC, compared with that on materials such as Ni, Cu, and SiO2, arises from delamination of the graphene film and buffer layer from the SiC substrate, which requires the breaking of covalent bonds. Preferential orientation of pleats at 120° with respect to each other was also observed; this is attributed to favorable formation of pleats along high symmetry directions of the graphene lattice.

Citation

Wells, G., Hopf, T., Vassilevski, K., Escobedo-Cousin, E., Wright, N., Horsfall, A., …Hunt, M. (2014). Determination of the adhesion energy of graphene on SiC(0001) via measurement of pleat defects. Applied Physics Letters, 105(19), Article 193109. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4901941

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 4, 2014
Online Publication Date	Nov 14, 2014
Publication Date	Nov 10, 2014
Deposit Date	Nov 25, 2014
Publicly Available Date	Dec 10, 2014
Journal	Applied Physics Letters
Print ISSN	0003-6951
Electronic ISSN	1077-3118
Publisher	American Institute of Physics
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	105
Issue	19
Article Number	193109
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4901941

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Copyright Statement
© 2014 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Wells, G.H., Hopf, T., Vassilevski, K.V., Escobedo-Cousin, E., Wright, N.G., Horsfall, A.B., Goss, J.P., O'Neill, A.G. and Hunt, M.R.C. (2014) 'Determination of the adhesion energy of graphene on SiC(0001) via measurement of pleat defects.', Applied physics letters., 105 (19). p. 193109 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4901941.