Direct Imaging of a Two-Dimensional Silica Glass on Graphene
- Author(s)
- Pinshane Y. Huang, Simon Kurasch, Anchal Srivastava, Viera Skakalova, Jani Kotakoski, A. Krasheninnikov, Robert Hovden, Qingyun Mao, Jannik C. Meyer, Jürgen H. Smet, David A. Müller, Ute Kaiser
- Abstract
Large-area graphene substrates provide a promising lab bench for synthesizing, manipulating, and characterizing low-dimensional materials, opening the door to high-resolution analyses of novel structures, such as two-dimensional (2D) glasses, that cannot be exfoliated and may not occur naturally. Here, we report the accidental discovery of a 2D silica glass supported on graphene. The 2D nature of this material enables the first atomic resolution transmission electron microscopy of a glass, producing images that strikingly resemble Zachariasen's original 1932 cartoon models of 2D continuous random network glasses. Atomic-resolution electron spectroscopy identifies the glass as SiO2 formed from a bilayer of (SiO4)(2-) tetrahedra and without detectable covalent bonding to the graphene. From these images, we directly obtain ring statistics and pair distribution functions that span short-, medium-, and long-range order. Ab initio calculations indicate that van der Waals interactions with graphene energetically stabilizes the 2D structure with respect to bulk SiO2. These results demonstrate a new class of 2D glasses that can be applied in layered graphene devices and studied at the atomic scale.
- Organisation(s)
- Physics of Nanostructured Materials
- External organisation(s)
- Cornell University, Universität Ulm, Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, University of Helsinki
- Journal
- Nano Letters: a journal dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology
- Volume
- 12
- Pages
- 1081-1086
- No. of pages
- 6
- ISSN
- 1530-6984
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/nl204423x
- Publication date
- 2012
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 210006 Nanotechnology
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/direct-imaging-of-a-twodimensional-silica-glass-on-graphene(fc3df551-724b-44b9-9df5-6d89c1dc1492).html