Spectroscopic and DFT studies of graphene intercalation systems on metals

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how intercalating metals and gases under graphene on metals can significantly alter its electronic properties, using advanced spectroscopy and DFT calculations to analyze these modifications.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how intercalation modifies graphene's electronic structure on metal substrates, combining experimental and theoretical approaches.

Findings

Intercalation of Cu and oxygen changes graphene's charge state.

Electronic structure modifications are observed near the Fermi level.

Spectroscopic and DFT methods effectively analyze energy dispersion.

Abstract

Intercalation of different species under graphene on metals is an effective way to tailor electronic properties of these systems. Here we present the successful intercalation of metallic (Cu) and gaseous (oxygen) specimens underneath graphene on Ir(111) and Ru(0001), respectively, that allows to change the charge state of graphene as well as to modify drastically its electronic structure in the vicinity of the Fermi level. We employ ARPES and STS spectroscopic methods in combination with state-of-the-art DFT calculations in order to illustrate how the energy dispersion of graphene-derived states can be studied in the macro- and nm-scale experiments.