Facile technique for the removal of metal contamination from graphene

Abstract

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Metal contamination deposited on few-layer graphene (3±1 ML) grown on SiC(0001) was successfully removed from the surface, using low cost adhesive tape. More than 99% of deposited silver contamination was removed from the surface via peeling, causing minimal damage to the graphene. A small change in the adhesion of graphene to the SiC(0001) substrate was indicated by changes observed in pleat defects on the surface, however, atomic resolution images show the graphene lattice remains pristine. Thin layers of contamination deposited via an electron gun during AES/LEED measurements were also found to be removable by this technique. This contamination showed similarities to "roughened" graphene previously reported in the literature.