Raman Studies of Monolayer Graphene: The Substrate Effect

Abstract

Graphene has attracted a lot of interest for fundamental studies as well as for potential applications. Till now, micromechanical cleavage (MC) of graphite has been used to produce high-quality graphene sheets on different substrates. Clear understanding of the substrate effect is important for the potential device fabrication of graphene. Here we report the results of the Raman studies of micromechanically cleaved monolayer graphene on standard SiO 2 (300 nm)/Si, single crystal quartz, Si, glass, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and NiFe. Our data suggests that the Raman features of monolayer graphene are independent of the substrate used; in other words, the effect of substrate on the atomic/electronic structures of graphene is negligible for graphene made by MC. On the other hand, epitaxial monolayer graphene (EMG) on SiC substrate is also investigated. Significant blueshift of Raman bands is observed, which is attributed to the interaction of the graphene sheet with the substrate, resulting in the change of lattice constant and also the electronic structure.

Structure of graphene and its disorders: a review

“…The asymmetry between the conduction band () and the valence band (), which is especially pronounced in the vicinity of the point, which is attributed to the non-zero overlap parameter . However, the electronic band structure of graphene can be simply altered by applying electric field [6,57–61] or providing substrates [62,63], and precisely engineered by introducing disorders into the hexagonal lattice [64–68], which will be discussed in detail in later sections.…”

The Preparation of Alumina Particles Wrapped in Few-layer Graphene Sheets and Their Application to Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

“…Wang et al investigated the effect of substrates on the Raman spectrum of monolayer graphene. 30 The positions of the G and 2D bands were negligibly affected by substrates for the graphene prepared by mechanically cleavage of graphite, but were significantly blue-shifted for the epitaxially grown graphene on SiC. 30 They interpreted the blue shift in terms of the strain effect caused by the covalent bonding between SiC substrate and graphene.…”

“…30 The positions of the G and 2D bands were negligibly affected by substrates for the graphene prepared by mechanically cleavage of graphite, but were significantly blue-shifted for the epitaxially grown graphene on SiC. 30 They interpreted the blue shift in terms of the strain effect caused by the covalent bonding between SiC substrate and graphene. On the other hand, the red shift of the 2D band may be explained by a combination of effects caused by the strain and layer number.…”

“…This wrapping may induce an interaction between the graphene sheets and alumina that causes the blue shift of the G band in the Raman spectrum. 30 The graphene sheets were formed by the reaction of CO with AlN in the reverse reaction of Eq. (1), in which CO is reduced to gaseous carbon, which subsequently crystallized in the graphene sheets, while AlN was converted to δ-Al 2 O 3 and subsequently transformed into α-Al 2 O 3 .…”

Technology ready use of single layer graphene as a transparent electrode for hybrid photovoltaic devices

“…Two-dimensional Raman topographical scans revealed that the film was >90% monolayer. After transfer onto a quartz substrate, the intensity of the D-band peak in the spectrum was not significantly changed, suggesting successful transfer to a more ideal substrate without significantly degrading graphene quality 12 .…”