11,179 research outputs found

    Origin of the Mosaicity in Graphene Grown on Cu(111)

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    We use low-energy electron microscopy to investigate how graphene grows on Cu(111). Graphene islands first nucleate at substrate defects such as step bunches and impurities. A considerable fraction of these islands can be rotationally misaligned with the substrate, generating grain boundaries upon interisland impingement. New rotational boundaries are also generated as graphene grows across substrate step bunches. Thus, rougher substrates lead to higher degrees of mosaicity than do flatter substrates. Increasing the growth temperature improves crystallographic alignment. We demonstrate that graphene growth on Cu(111) is surface diffusion limited by comparing simulations of the time evolution of island shapes with experiments. Islands are dendritic with distinct lobes, but unlike the polycrystalline, four-lobed islands observed on (100)-textured Cu foils, each island can be a single crystal. Thus, epitaxial graphene on smooth, clean Cu(111) has fewer structural defects than it does on Cu(100).Comment: Article revised following reviewer comment

    Local moment, itinerancy and deviation from Fermi liquid behavior in Nax_xCoO2_2 for 0.71≤x≤0.840.71 \leq x \leq 0.84

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    Here we report the observation of Fermi surface (FS) pockets via the Shubnikov de Haas effect in Nax_xCoO2_2 for x=0.71x = 0.71 and 0.84, respectively. Our observations indicate that the FS expected for each compound intersects their corresponding Brillouin zones, as defined by the previously reported superlattice structures, leading to small reconstructed FS pockets, but only if a precise number of holes per unit cell is \emph{localized}. For 0.71≤x<0.750.71 \leq x < 0.75 the coexistence of itinerant carriers and localized S=1/2S =1/2 spins on a paramagnetic triangular superlattice leads at low temperatures to the observation of a deviation from standard Fermi-liquid behavior in the electrical transport and heat capacity properties, suggesting the formation of some kind of quantum spin-liquid ground state.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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