Abstract
Graphene, with unique mechanical and electrical properties, offers diverse application opportunities from beyond Moore's nano-electronics to water filtration. However, accomplishing these relies on cleaning and processing large areas of supported and suspended graphene sheets. Here, we demonstrate the use of an Ar cluster ion beam as a versatile tool for graphene cleaning, defect engineering, and nanopore fabrication. In-situ and ex-situ characterization techniques were utilized in combination with first principles molecular dynamics, to highlight the differences in processing of the supported and suspended graphene samples. In this work, we monitor interaction of the Ar cluster ion beam with graphene as a function of ion dose with in-situ secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), as well as ex-situ Raman spectroscopy measurements. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) results confirm that the Ar cluster ion beam can form nanopores in the suspended graphene; while the basal plane of graphene remains intact maintaining the lattice structure. Finally, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) image analysis of the irradiated samples allows quantitative tracking of pore areas and their distribution as a function of ion dose. This study highlights the flexibility of the Ar cluster ion beam in 2D material processing, and offers insights into Ar beam interaction with graphene.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 142-148 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Carbon |
| Volume | 131 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2018 |
Funding
This work was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility. Partial support was given by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy. (S.K., I.V.V., O.D., A.B., S.J.) This work used XSEDE computing resources through allocation TG-DMR110037.