Unraveling the 3D Atomic Structure of a Suspended Graphene/hBN van der Waals Heterostructure
- Author(s)
- Giacomo Argentero, Andreas Mittelberger, Mohammad Reza Ahmad Pour Monazam, Yang Cao, Timothy J. Pennycook, Clemens Mangler, Christian Kramberger, Jani Kotakoski, A. K. Geim, Jannik C. Meyer
- Abstract
In this work we demonstrate that a free-standing van der Waals heterostructure, usually regarded as a flat object, can exhibit an intrinsic buckled atomic structure resulting from the interaction between two layers with a small lattice mismatch. We studied a freely suspended membrane of well-aligned graphene on a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) monolayer by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning TEM (STEM). We developed a detection method in the STEM that is capable of recording the direction of the scattered electron beam and that is extremely sensitive to the local stacking of atoms. A comparison between experimental data and simulated models shows that the heterostructure effectively bends in the out-of-plane direction, producing an undulated structure having a periodicity that matches the moiré wavelength. We attribute this rippling to the interlayer interaction and also show how this affects the intralayer strain in each layer.
- Organisation(s)
- Physics of Nanostructured Materials
- External organisation(s)
- University of Manchester
- Journal
- Nano Letters: a journal dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology
- Volume
- 17
- Pages
- 1409-1416
- No. of pages
- 8
- ISSN
- 1530-6984
- Publication date
- 03-2017
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103018 Materials physics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Condensed Matter Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering, Chemistry(all), Materials Science(all)
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/unraveling-the-3d-atomic-structure-of-a-suspended-graphenehbn-van-der-waals-heterostructure(72f5b7b6-831e-426f-bb67-6567134334cb).html