Large-Area Epitaxial Growth of Curvature-Stabilized ABC Trilayer Graphene with Tunable Band Gap

ORAL

Abstract

The physical properties of epitaxially-grown layered van der Waals (vdW) materials can be engineered to an extraordinary degree by manipulating the number of atomic layers, their compositions, and their relative stacking configurations and twist angles. vdW trilayer graphene (TLG) can stack in either a semi-metallic ABA configuration or a semi-conducting ABC configuration with a gate-tunable band gap but to this point has only been produced via exfoliation, which greatly limits its scientific and technological development. Here we present a scalable approach to epitaxial TLG growth via chemical vapor deposition that reliably enhances the fraction and size of ABC stacked TLG domains compared to other methods. The key insight is that nanoscale substrate curvature can locally stabilize ABC domains, typically leading to alternating regions of ABC and ABA on topographically corrugated growth substrates. Unambiguous electronic signatures of ABC-TLG were revealed by nano angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and infrared scanning near-field microscopy. The ABC fraction remains high after transfer onto a device substrate, as confirmed by transport measurements showing a sizable and tunable ABC-TLG band gap.

*This work was supported by the NSF EFRI 2-DARE 1542879.

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Presenters

  • Zhaoli Gao

    • University of Pennsylvania

Authors

  • Zhaoli Gao

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Sheng Wang

    • University of California at Berkeley
    • University of California, Berkeley

  • Joel M Berry

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Qicheng Zhang

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Julian Gebhardt

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • William Parkin

    • University of Pennsylvania
    • Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Pennsylvania

  • Jose Avila

    • Synchrotron SOLEIL
    • Synchrotron-SOLEIL

  • Hemian Yi

    • Synchrotron-SOLEIL
    • Synchrotron SOLEIL
    • Antares beamline, Synchrotron Soleil, Paris, France

  • Chaoyu Chen

    • Synchrotron SOLEIL
    • Synchrotron-SOLEIL

  • Sebastian Hurtado Parra

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Marija Drndić

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Andrew Rappe

    • University of Pennsylvania
    • Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania
    • Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania

  • David Srolovitz

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • J. M. Kikkawa

    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Zhengtang Luo

    • Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
    • Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

  • Maria C. Asensio

    • Synchrotron SOLEIL
    • Synchrotron-SOLEIL
    • Antares beamline, Synchrotron Soleil, Paris, France

  • Feng Wang

    • University of California - Berkeley
    • University of California, Berkeley
    • Physics, UC Berkeley
    • Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA
    • University of California at Berkeley
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley
    • UC Berkeley
    • Physics, University of California, Berkeley

  • Alan T Johnson

    • University of Pennsylvania
    • Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Pennsylvania
    • Univ of Pennsylvania