In Situ Room Temperature Electron-Beam Driven Graphene Growth from Hydrocarbon Contamination in a Transmission Electron Microscope

Mark H Rummeli; Yumo Pan; Liang Zhao; Jing Gao; Huy Q Ta; Ignacio G Martinez; Rafael G Mendes; Thomas Gemming; Lei Fu; Alicja Bachmatiuk; Zhongfan Liu

doi:10.3390/ma11060896

In Situ Room Temperature Electron-Beam Driven Graphene Growth from Hydrocarbon Contamination in a Transmission Electron Microscope

Materials (Basel). 2018 May 26;11(6):896. doi: 10.3390/ma11060896.

Authors

Mark H Rummeli^{1

2

3}, Yumo Pan⁴, Liang Zhao⁵, Jing Gao⁶, Huy Q Ta⁷, Ignacio G Martinez⁸, Rafael G Mendes^{9

10}, Thomas Gemming¹¹, Lei Fu¹², Alicja Bachmatiuk^{13

14

15}, Zhongfan Liu¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. m.ruemmeli@ifw-dresden.de.
² Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Polish Academy of Sciences, M. Curie-Sklodowskiej 34, Zabrze 41-819, Poland. m.ruemmeli@ifw-dresden.de.
³ IFW Dresden, D-01171 Dresden, Germany. m.ruemmeli@ifw-dresden.de.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. 1508404030@stu.suda.edu.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. lzhao@suda.edu.cn.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. 20114014013@suda.edu.cn.
⁷ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. huytq8793@gmail.com.
⁸ IFW Dresden, D-01171 Dresden, Germany. i.g.gonzales.martinez@ifw-dresden.de.
⁹ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. r.g.mendes@ifw-dresden.de.
¹⁰ IFW Dresden, D-01171 Dresden, Germany. r.g.mendes@ifw-dresden.de.
¹¹ IFW Dresden, D-01171 Dresden, Germany. t.gemming@ifw-dresden.de.
¹² College of Chemistry and Molecular Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. leifu@whu.edu.cn.
¹³ Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China. alicja-bachmatiuk@wp.pl.
¹⁴ Centre of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Polish Academy of Sciences, M. Curie-Sklodowskiej 34, Zabrze 41-819, Poland. alicja-bachmatiuk@wp.pl.
¹⁵ IFW Dresden, D-01171 Dresden, Germany. alicja-bachmatiuk@wp.pl.
¹⁶ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Center for Nanochemistry, Beijing Science and Engineering Centre for Nanocarbons, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. zfliu@pku.edu.cn.

Abstract

The excitement of graphene (as well as 2D materials in general) has generated numerous procedures for the fabrication of graphene. Here we present a mini-review on a rather less known, but attractive, in situ means to fabricate graphene inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM). This is achieved in a conventional TEM (viz. no sophisticated specimen holders or microscopes are required) and takes advantage of inherent hydrocarbon contamination as a carbon source. Both catalyst free and single atom catalyst approaches are reviewed. An advantage of this technique is that not only can the growth process be imaged in situ, but this can also be achieved with atomic resolution. Moreover, in the future, one can anticipate such approaches enabling the growth of nano-materials with atomic precision.

Keywords: graphene; in situ TEM; synthesis.

Publication types

Review