Due to its ultrahigh electron transmissivity in a wide electron energy range, molecular impermeability, high electrical conductivity and excellent mechanical stiffness the suspended graphene membranes appear to be a nearly ideal window material for in situ (in vivo) environmental electron microscopy of nano- and mesoscopic objects (including bio-medical samples) immersed in liquids and/or in dense gaseous media. In this communication, taking advantage of little modification of the graphene transfer protocol on to metallic and SiN supporting orifices, the reusable environmental cells with exchangeable graphene windows have been designed. Using colloidal gold nanoparticles (50 nm) dispersed in water as model objects for scanning electron microscopy in liquids, the different imaging conditions through graphene membrane have been tested. The limiting factors for electron microscopy in liquids such as electron beam induced water radiolysis and damage of graphene membrane at high electron doses were discussed.
Time resolution is one of the most severe limitations of scanning probe microscopies (SPMs), since the typical image acquisition times are in the order of several seconds or even few minutes. As a consequence, the characterization of dynamical processes occurring at surfaces (e.g. surface diffusion, film growth, self-assembly and chemical reactions) cannot be thoroughly addressed by conventional SPMs. To overcome this limitation, several years ago we developed a first prototype of the FAST module, an add-on instrument capable of driving a commercial scanning tunneling microscope (STM) at and b…
We have implemented three different optical methods to quantitatively assess the thickness of thin GaSe flakes transferred on both transparent substrates, like Gel-Film, or SiO2/Si substrates. We show how their apparent color can be an efficient way to make a quick rough estimation of the thickness of the flakes. This method is more effective for SiO2/Si substrates as the thickness dependent color change is more pronounced on these substrates than on transparent substrates. On the other hand, for transparent substrates, the transmittance of the flakes in the blue region of the visible spectrum…
Photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) and microscopy are highly demanded for exploring morphologically complex solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces under realistic conditions, but the very small electron mean free path inside the dense media imposes serious experimental challenges. Currently, near ambient pressure PES is conducted using sophisticated and expensive electron energy analyzers coupled with differentially pumped electron lenses. An alternative economical approach proposed in this report uses ultrathin graphene membranes to isolate the ambient sample environment from the PES detection s…
Graphene grown epitaxially on SiC has been proposed as a material for carbon-based electronics. Understanding the interface between graphene and the SiC substrate will be important for future applications. We report the ability to image the interface structure beneath single-layer graphene using scanning tunneling microscopy. Such imaging is possible because the graphene appears transparent at energies of 1 eV above or below the Fermi energy. Our analysis of calculations based on density functional theory shows how this transparency arises from the electronic structure of a graphene layer on a…
Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) and transparent oxide semiconductors (TOSs) have become necessary materials for a variety of applications in the information and energy technologies, ranging from transparent electrodes to active electronics components. Perovskite barium stannate (BaSnO3), a new TCO or TOS system, is a potential platform for realizing optoelectronic devices and observing novel electronic quantum states due to its high electron mobility, excellent thermal stability, high transparency, structural versatility, and flexible doping controllability at room temperature. This artic…
Electrical double layers play a key role in a variety of electrochemical systems. The mean free path of secondary electrons in aqueous solutions is on the order of a nanometer, making them suitable for probing of ultrathin electrical double layers at solid-liquid electrolyte interfaces. Employing graphene as an electron-transparent electrode in a two-electrode electrochemical system, we show that the secondary electron yield of the graphene-liquid interface depends on the ionic strength and concentration of electrolyte and applied bias at the remote counter electrode. These observations have b…
La-doped SrSnO3 (LSSO) is known as one of deep-ultraviolet (DUV)-transparent conducting oxides with an energy bandgap of ~4.6 eV. Since LSSO can be grown heteroepitaxially on more wide bandgap substrates such as MgO (Eg ~7.8 eV), LSSO is considered to be a good candidate as a DUV-transparent electrode. However, the electrical conductivity of LSSO films are below 1000 S cm^-1, most likely due to the low solubility of La ion in the LSSO lattice. Here we report that high electrically conducting (>3000 S cm^-1) LSSO thin films with an energy bandgap of ~4.6 eV can be fabricated by pulsed laser dep…
The polymer nanocomposites find applications in diverse areas ranging from smart materials to bioengineering. They are developed by dispersion of nanomaterials in a bulk phase of a polymeric material. Although several methods facilitate efficient dispersion of nanomaterials in a bulk polymer matrix to create nanocomposites, majority of them follows heat, beat and treat processes. These processes are high energy demanding processes. Moreover, the challenge increases when nanomaterials need to be dispersed in a viscous polymeric material. This results in spatial heterogeneity in the dispersion o…
Graphene has been used recently as a replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO) for the transparent electrode of an organic photovoltaic device. Due to its limited supply, ITO is considered as a limiting factor for the commercialization of organic solar cells. We explored the use of large-area graphene grown on copper by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and then transferred to a glass substrate as an alternative transparent electrode. The transferred film was shown by scanning Raman spectroscopy measurements to consist of >90% single layer graphene. Optical spectroscopy measurements showed that the…
We investigated the electronic and optoelectronic properties of vertical van der Waals heterostructure photodetectors using layered p type GaSe and n type InSe, with graphene as the transparent electrodes. Not only the photocurrent peaks from the layered GaSe and InSe themselves were observed, also the interlayer optical transition peak was observed, which is consistent with the first-principles calculation. The built-in electric field between p-n heterojunction and the advantage of the graphene electrodes can effectively separate the photo-induced electron-hole pairs, and thus lead to the res…
Elemental phosphorous is believed to have several stable allotropes that are energetically nearly degenerate, but chemically reactive. To prevent chemical degradation under ambient conditions, these structures may be capped by monolayers of hexagonal boron nitride ({\em h}-BN) or graphene. We perform {\em ab initio} density functional calculations to simulate scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images of different layered allotropes of phosphorus and study the effect of capping layers on these images. We find that protective monolayers of insulating {\em h}-BN allow to distinguish between the …
Two-dimensional (2D) materials have recently been the focus of extensive research. By following a similar trend as graphene, other 2D materials including transition metal dichalcogenides (MX2) and metal mono-chalcogenides (MX) show great potential for ultrathin nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices. Despite the weak nature of interlayer forces in semiconducting MX materials, their electronic properties are highly dependent on the number of layers. Using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM/STS), we demonstrate the tunability of the quasiparticle energy gap of few layered gal…
Atomic resolution imaging in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning TEM (STEM) of light elements in electron-transparent materials has long been a challenge. Biomolecular materials, for example, are rapidly altered when illuminated with electrons. These issues have driven the development of TEM and STEM techniques that enable the structural analysis of electron beam-sensitive and weakly scattering nano-materials. Here, we demonstrate such a technique, STEM holography, capable of absolute phase and amplitude object wave measurement with respect to a vacuum reference wave. We use an…
Large area epitaxy of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials with high material quality is a crucial step in realizing novel device applications based on 2D materials. In this work, we report high-quality, crystalline, large-area gallium selenide (GaSe) films grown on bulk substrates such as c-plane sapphire and gallium nitride (GaN) using a valved cracker source for Se. (002)-oriented GaSe with random in-plane orientation of domains was grown on sapphire and GaN substrates at a substrate temperature of 350-450 C with complete surface coverage and smooth surface morphology. Higher growth tempe…
Barrier films preventing permeation of gases and moistures are important for many industries ranging from food to medical and from chemical to electronic. From this perspective, graphene has recently attracted particular interest because its defect free monolayers are impermeable to all gases and liquids. However, it has proved challenging to develop large-area defectless graphene films suitable for industrial use. Here we report barrier properties of multilayer graphitic films made by chemical reduction of easily and cheaply produced graphene oxide laminates. They are found to provide a pract…
Two-dimensional election gases (2DEG), arising due to quantum confinement at interfaces between transparent conducting oxides, have received tremendous attention in view of electronic applications. The challenge is to find a material system that exhibits both a high charge-carrier density and mobility, at and even above room temperature. Here, we explore the potential of interfaces formed by two lattice-matched wide-gap oxides of emerging interest, $\textit{i.e.}$, the polar, orthorhombic perovskite LaInO$_{3}$ and the non-polar, cubic perovskite BaSnO$_{3}$, employing density-functional theor…
Novelty-Driven Target-Space Discovery in Automated Electron and Scanning Probe Microscopy
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville（田纳西大学材料科学与工程系）；Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle（华盛顿大学化学系）；Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland（太平洋西北国家实验室）
Orbital and Spin Edelstein Effects in KTaO$_3$(110) Two-Dimensional Electron Gases
Laboratoire Albert Fert, CNRS, Thales, Université Paris-Saclay（阿尔伯特·费尔特实验室）；Laboratoire de Physique et d’Etude des Matériaux, ESPCI Paris, Université PSL, CNRS（物理与材料研究实验室，巴黎高等物理化工学院）；Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay（固体物理实验室）；Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics（萨哈核物理研究所）；Institute of Physics, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg（马丁·路德·哈雷-维滕贝格大学物理研究所）；Spintec, Université Grenoble Alpes/CNRS/CEA（自旋电子学实验室）；Laboratoire de Physique de l’École Normale Supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité（巴黎高等师范学院物理实验室）；Synchrotron SOLEIL（SOLEIL同步辐射中心）
Recent developments in environmental and liquid cells equipped with electron transparent graphene windows have enabled traditional surface science spectromicroscopy tools, such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to be applied to study solid-liquid and liquid-gas interfaces. Here, we focus on the experimental implementation of PEEM to probe electrified graphene-liquid interfaces using electrolyte-filled microchannel arrays as a new sample platform. We demonstrate the important methodological advantage of th…
We report that graphene films with thickness ranging from 1 to 7 layers can be controllably synthesized on the surface of polycrystalline copper by a chemical vapour deposition method. The number of layers of graphene is controlled precisely by regulating the flow ratio of CH4 and H2, the reaction pressure, the temperature and the reaction time. The synthesized graphene films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. In addition, the graphene films transferred from copper t…
Emerging flexible and wearable technologies such as healthcare electronics and energy-harvest devices could be transformed by the unique properties of graphene. The vision for a graphene-driven industrial revolution is motivating intensive research on the synthesis of (1) high quality and (2) low cost graphene. Hot-wall chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is one of the most competitive growth methods, but its long processing times are incompatible with production lines. Here we demonstrate the growth of high quality monolayer graphene using a technique that is 100 times faster than standard hot-w…
