No abstract

The ability to produce large, continuous and defect free films of graphene is presently a major challenge for multiple applications. Even though the scalability of graphene films is closely associated to a manifest polycrystalline character, only a few numbers of experiments have explored so far the electronic structure down to single graphene grains. Here we report a high resolution angle and lateral resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (nano-ARPES) study of one-atom thick graphene films on thin copper foils synthesized by chemical vapor deposition. Our results show the robustness of the Dirac relativistic-like electronic spectrum as a function of the size, shape and orientation of the single-crystal pristine grains in the graphene films investigated. Moreover, by mapping grain by grain the electronic dynamics of this unique Dirac system, we show that the single-grain gap-size is 80% smaller than the multi-grain gap recently reported by classical ARPES.

The practical difficulties to use graphene in microelectronics and optoelectronics is that the available methods to grow graphene are not easily integrated in the mainstream technologies. A growth method that could overcome at least some of these problems is chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of graphene directly on semiconducting (Si or Ge) substrates. Here we report on the comparison of the CVD and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of graphene on the technologically relevant Ge(001)/Si(001) substrate from ethene (C2H4) precursor and describe the physical properties of the films as well as we discuss the surface reaction and diffusion processes that may be responsible for the observed behavior. Using nano angle resolved photoemission (nanoARPES) complemented by transport studies and Raman spectroscopy as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we report the direct observation of massless Dirac particles in monolayer graphene, providing a comprehensive mapping of their low-hole doped Dirac electron bands. The micrometric graphene flakes are oriented along two predominant directions rotated by 30° with respect to each other. The growth mode is attributed to the mechanism when small graphene “molecules” nucleate on the Ge(001) surface and it is found that hydrogen plays a significant role in this process.