Resonant Raman spectroscopy of twisted multilayer graphene

Nat Commun. 2014 Nov 10:5:5309. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6309.

Abstract

Graphene and other two-dimensional crystals can be combined to form various hybrids and heterostructures, creating materials on demand with properties determined by the interlayer interaction. This is the case even for a single material, where multilayer stacks with different relative orientation have different optical and electronic properties. Probing and understanding the interface coupling is thus of primary importance for fundamental science and applications. Here we study twisted multilayer graphene flakes with multi-wavelength Raman spectroscopy. We find a significant intensity enhancement of the interlayer coupling modes (C peaks) due to resonance with new optically allowed electronic transitions, determined by the relative orientation of the layers. The interlayer coupling results in a Davydov splitting of the C peak in systems consisting of two equivalent graphene multilayers. This allows us to directly quantify the interlayer interaction, which is much smaller compared with Bernal-stacked interfaces. This paves the way to the use of Raman spectroscopy to uncover the interface coupling of two-dimensional hybrids and heterostructures.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't