Nitrogen assisted etching of graphene layers in a scanning electron microscope

Fox, Daniel; O’Neill, Arlene; Zhou, Daming; Boese, Markus; Coleman, Jonathan N.; Zhang, Hongzhou

doi:10.1063/1.3601467

Cited by 56 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…However, the crystal structure of the graphene must remain intact during the HIM processing of the graphene. In our previous work the effect of HIM irradiation on silicon has been investigated [23] and the effects of electron beam and argon ion irradiation on graphene have been evaluated [24,25]. The HIM beam induced damage and amorphization of graphene have yet to be comprehensively investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helium ion microscopy of graphene: beam damage, image quality and edge contrast

Fox¹,

Zhou²,

O’Neill³

et al. 2013

Nanotechnology

114

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A study to analyse beam damage, image quality and edge contrast in the helium ion microscope (HIM) has been undertaken. The sample investigated was graphene. Raman spectroscopy was used to quantify the disorder that can be introduced into the graphene as a function of helium ion dose. The effects of the dose on both freestanding and supported graphene were compared. These doses were then correlated directly to image quality by imaging graphene flakes at high magnification. It was found that a high magnification image with a good signal to noise ratio will introduce very significant sample damage. A safe imaging dose of the order of 10 13 He + cm −2 was established, with both graphene samples becoming highly defective at doses over 5 × 10 14 He + cm −2 . The edge contrast of a freestanding graphene flake imaged in the HIM was then compared with the contrast of the same flake observed in a scanning electron microscope and a transmission electron microscope. Very strong edge sensitivity was observed in the HIM. This enhanced edge sensitivity over the other techniques investigated makes the HIM a powerful nanoscale dimensional metrology tool, with the capability of both fabricating and imaging features with sub-nanometre resolution.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helium ion microscopy of graphene: beam damage, image quality and edge contrast

Fox¹,

Zhou²,

O’Neill³

et al. 2013

Nanotechnology

114

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“…[21][22][23] However, graphene patterning by using low electron-beam energies is desirable for practical applications. Contaminants such as residual water, nitrogen, and oxygen presented on graphene or in the chamber are responsible for the low-energy knockout process, [24][25][26] and the mechanism was discussed in detail in ref. [ 23 ] In this chemically assisted low-energy knockout process, the contamination molecules are ionized by the incident electron beam (e-beam) and react with the e-beam-activated carbon DOI: 10.1002/smll.201401523 A polymer-free technique for generating nanopatterns on both synthesized and exfoliated graphene sheets is proposed and demonstrated.…”

Section: Polymer-free Patterning Of Graphene At Sub-10-nm Scale By Lomentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymer‐Free Patterning of Graphene at Sub‐10‐nm Scale by Low‐Energy Repetitive Electron Beam

Lan

Chang

Xiao

et al. 2014

Small

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A polymer-free technique for generating nanopatterns on both synthesized and exfoliated graphene sheets is proposed and demonstrated. A low-energy (5-30 keV) scanning electron beam with variable repetition rates is used to etch suspended and unsuspended graphene sheets on designed locations. The patterning mechanisms involve a defect-induced knockout process in the initial etching stage and a heat-induced curling process in a later stage. Rough pattern edges appear due to inevitable stochastic knockout of carbon atoms or graphene structure imperfection and can be smoothed by thermal annealing. By using this technique, the minimum feature sizes achieved are about 5 nm for suspended and 7 nm for unsuspended graphene. This study demonstrates a polymer-free direct nanopatterning approach for graphene.

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“…A low-energy focused electron beam in a SEM apparatus with nitrogen gas, successfully produced nanopores of <10 nm in size in graphene sheets [60], as shown in Fig. 4.…”

Section: Graphene Sheets Etched With Nitrogen In a Scanning Electron mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All these methods provide porous graphene sheets with pores of different dimensions and most of them are expensive and time consuming, such as a TEM or SEM apparatus is needed [59,60] or many reactions steps are required as well as the purification of the material [61]. However, the method we developed seems to be a scalable and green approach for the synthesis of porous graphene.…”

Section: Nmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesis, Properties and Potential Applications of Porous Graphene: A Review

Russo

Compagnini

2013

Nano-Micro Lett.

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Abstract:Since the discovery of graphene, many efforts have been done to modify the graphene structure for integrating this novel material to nanoelectronics, fuel cells, energy storage devices and in many other applications. This leads to the production of different types of graphene-based materials, which possess properties different from those of pure graphene. Porous graphene is an example of this type of materials. It can be considered as a graphene sheet with some holes/pores within the atomic plane. Due to its spongy structure, porous graphene can have potential applications as membranes for molecular sieving, energy storage components and in nanoelectronics. In this review, we present the recent progress in the synthesis of porous graphene. The properties and the potential applications of this new material are also discussed.

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Nitrogen assisted etching of graphene layers in a scanning electron microscope

Cited by 56 publications

References 24 publications

Helium ion microscopy of graphene: beam damage, image quality and edge contrast

Helium ion microscopy of graphene: beam damage, image quality and edge contrast

Polymer‐Free Patterning of Graphene at Sub‐10‐nm Scale by Low‐Energy Repetitive Electron Beam

Synthesis, Properties and Potential Applications of Porous Graphene: A Review

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