Abstract
Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures consist of isolated atomic planar structures, assembled layer-by-layer into desired structures in a well-defined sequence. Graphene deposited on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has been first considered as a testbed system for vdW heterostructures, and many others have been demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally, revealing many attractive properties and phenomena. However, much less emphasis has been placed on how graphene actively affects h-BN properties. Here, we perform local probe measurements on single-layer h-BN grown over graphene and highlight the manifestation of a proximity effect that significantly affects the electronic properties of h-BN due to its coupling with the underlying graphene. We find electronic states originating from the graphene layer and the Cu substrate to be injected into the wide electronic gap of the h-BN top layer. Such proximity effect is further confirmed in a study of the variation of h-BN in-gap states with interlayer couplings, elucidated using a combination of topographical/spectroscopic measurements and first-principles density functional theory calculations. The findings of this work indicate the potential of mutually engineering electronic properties of the components of vdW heterostructures.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 045002 |
Journal | 2D Materials |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 28 2016 |
Funding
MP acknowledges financial support by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11574095). Part of this research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) (QL, MP), which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. The work at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) was supported by NSF Grant EFRI 2-DARE (EFRI-1542707). The computations were performed using the resources of the Center for Computational Innovation at RPI. L Liang was supported by Eugene P Wigner Fellowship at ORNL. SM Kim and J Kong acknowledge the support from the National Science Foundation under award number NSF DMR 0845358. J Kong, and MS Dresselhaus acknowledge the Graphene Approaches to Terahertz Electronics (GATE) - MURI grant N00014-09-1-1063.
Funders | Funder number |
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Scientific User Facilities Division | |
National Science Foundation | NSF DMR 0845358, N00014-09-1-1063 |
U.S. Department of Energy | |
Basic Energy Sciences | |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | EFRI-1542707, EFRI 2-DARE |
National Natural Science Foundation of China | 11574095 |
Keywords
- DFT
- Graphene
- Heterostructure
- STM/STS