Fig. 5: Growth of a nanocrystalline graphene layer by supplying a precursor molecule.
From: Mechanical cleaning of graphene using in situ electron microscopy
a A graphene specimen is covered in CuTPP by drop-casting it onto the surface. After in situ cleaning, the molecules diffuse over the cleaned area. The electron-beam reactions can be induced, resulting in the growth of a second graphene layer (b–d). See Supplementary Movies 5 for the whole process. The second layer is turbostratically disordered resulting in a pronounced Moiré pattern. By Fourier filtering, this pattern can be disentangled (e) revealing small grains in the second layer separated by grain boundaries. The FFT reveals an out-of-plane order with an in-plane disorder. The grain boundaries in the second layer (f) have the expected structure of graphene consisting of dislocation walls (g).
