No Arabic abstract
The conversion of graphene into diamond is a new way for preparing ultrathin diamond film without pressure. Herein, we investigated the transformation mechanism of surface-hydrogenated bilayer graphene (SHBG) into surface-hydrogenated single-layer diamond (SHSLD) crystal, inserting fifteen kinds of single metal atoms without any pressure, by using the systematical first-principles calculations. Compared with the configuration without metal atom, SHBG can be transformed into SHSLD spontaneously in thermodynamics under the action of single metal atom, and its formation energy can even decrease from 0.82 eV to -5.79 eV under the action of Hf atom. According to our results, the outer electron orbits and atomic radius of metal atom are two important factors that affect the conversion. For the phase transition to occur, the metal atom needs to have enough empty d orbitals, and the radius of the metal atom is in the range of 0.136-0.159 nm. Through further analysis, we find that the p orbitals of carbon atoms and d orbital of metal atom in SHBG will be strongly hybridized, thereby promoting the conversion. The results supply important significance to experimentally prepare diamond without pressure through hydrogenated graphene.
Notwithstanding numerous density functional studies on the chemically induced transformation of multilayer graphene into a diamond-like film, a comprehensive convincing experimental proof of such a conversion is still lacking. We show that the fluorination of graphene sheets in Bernal (AB)-stacked bilayer graphene (AB-BLG) grown by chemical vapor deposition on a single crystal CuNi(111) surface triggers the formation of interlayer carbon-carbon bonds, resulting in a fluorinated diamond monolayer (F-diamane). Induced by fluorine chemisorption, the phase transition from AB-BLG to single layer diamond was studied and verified by X-ray photoelectron, ultraviolet photoelectron, Raman, UV-Vis, electron energy loss spectroscopies, transmission electron microscopy, and DFT calculations.
We unveil the diamondization mechanism of few-layer graphene compressed in the presence of water, providing robust evidence for the pressure-induced formation of 2D diamond. High-pressure Raman spectroscopy provides evidence of a phase transition occurring in the range of 4-7 GPa for 5-layer graphene and graphite. The pressure-induced phase is partially transparent and indents the silicon substrate. Our combined theoretical and experimental results indicate a gradual top-bottom diamondization mechanism, consistent with the formation of diamondene, a 2D ferromagnetic semiconductor. High-pressure x-ray diffraction on graphene indicates the formation of hexagonal diamond, consistent with the bulk limit of eclipsed-conformed diamondene.
We present a simple torsional potential for graphene to accurately describe its out-of-plane deformations. The parameters of the potential are derived through appropriate fitting with suitable DFT calculations regarding the deformation energy of graphene sheets folded around two different folding axes, along an armchair or along a zig-zag direction. Removing the energetic contribution of bending angles, using a previously introduced angle bending potential, we isolate the purely torsional deformation energy, which is then fitted to simple torsional force fields. The presented out-of-plane torsional potential can accurately fit the deformation energy for relatively large torsional angles up to 0.5 rad. To test our proposed potential, we apply it to the problem of the vertical displacement of a single carbon atom out of the graphene plane and compare the obtained deformation energy with corresponding DFT calculations. The dependence of the deformation energy on the vertical displacement of the pulled carbon atom is indistinguishable in these two cases, for displacements up to about 0.5 $AA$. The presented potential is applicable to other sp$^2$ carbon structures.
The capability to control the type and amount of charge carriers in a material and, in the extreme case, the transition from metal to insulator is one of the key challenges of modern electronics. By employing angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) we find that a reversible metal to insulator transition and a fine tuning of the charge carriers from electrons to holes can be achieved in epitaxial bilayer and single layer graphene by molecular doping. The effects of electron screening and disorder are also discussed. These results demonstrate that epitaxial graphene is suitable for electronics applications, as well as provide new opportunities for studying the hole doping regime of the Dirac cone in graphene.
Metal-insulator transitions (MIT),an intriguing correlated phenomenon induced by the subtle competition of the electrons repulsive Coulomb interaction and kinetic energy, is of great potential use for electronic applications due to the dramatic change in resistivity. Here, we demonstrate a reversible control of MIT in VO2 films via oxygen stoichiometry engineering. By facilely depositing and dissolving a water-soluble yet oxygen-active Sr3Al2O6 capping layer atop the VO2 at room temperature, oxygen ions can reversibly migrate between VO2 and Sr3Al2O6, resulting in a gradual suppression and a complete recovery of MIT in VO2. The migration of the oxygen ions is evidenced in a combination of transport measurement, structural characterization and first-principles calculations. This approach of chemically-induced oxygen migration using a water-dissolvable adjacent layer could be useful for advanced electronic and iontronic devices and studying oxygen stoichiometry effects on the MIT.