In the last decade after graphene isolation in 2004, many methods have been developed for the synthesis of this material. The most used substrates have been metal surfaces, due to their catalytic action, which is helpful for the formation of graphene. However, the coupling of the graphene layer with the…
The catalytic role of metallic substrates is a perfect starting point for growing high quality graphene layers by thermal decomposition of aromatics. However, metallic substrates quench the outstanding properties that make graphene the most promising material for future applications. Thus, protocols to transfer graphene to different technologically relevant substrates are…
Graphene edges are known to present localized electronic states that depend on the exact atomic configuration of the graphene border. It has been predicted that zigzag-ended and chiral-ended graphene nanostructures develop spatially and spectrally localized edge states around the Fermi level. However, experimental evidence remains scarce as atomic-scale investigations of…
New nanoarchitectures can be built from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) by exploiting the catalytic properties of some metal surfaces. Actually, this bottom-up approach allows the formation of nanostructures with different dimensionality from the same precursor as a consequence of the diffusion of the PAH on the surface. Thus, by selecting…
In this work, we describe a new protocol to grow high-quality graphene by physical vapour deposition (PVD) using C60 molecules evaporated in ultra high vacuum conditions (UHV) on Cu foils substrates. The quality of the resulting graphene layer has been assessed by the combination of complementary surface characterization techniques. Additionally,…
Recently, we have published a new work in a special issue of the Surface Science journal in Honour of Richard Lambert. “Adsorption and coupling of 4-aminophenol on Pt(111) surfaces” Surf. Sci. 646 (2016) 5-12 by G. Otero-Irurueta, J.I. Martínez, R.A. Bueno, F.J. Palomares, H.J. Salavagione, M.K. Singh, J. Méndez, G.J.…
Graphene growth on metal surfaces is one of the most promising routes towards scalable production of high-quality graphene suitable for industrial applications. Conventionally, the growth of graphene is carried out on weakly interacting surfaces – typically Cu foils – where the substrate plays a double role: first, as a catalyst;…
Surface nano-patterning by ion beam sputtering (IBS) is a bottom-up strategy to produce nanostructures on large areas of a wide range of materials (metals, insulators, semiconductors) in just a few minutes. This technique has been known for many years but its underlying physical mechanisms are still open to discussion. Initially,…
One of the most extended approaches in order to growth metal-organic nanostructures on surfaces consists in recombine small organic molecules with a carefully controlled quantity of metallic atoms on a surface. As an example, our group followed this strategy in previous works for obtaining a rich variety of nanostructures by…
The use of appropriately functionalized molecular building blocks to form novel nano-architectures with tailored structure and electronic properties has recently been brought under the spotlight. Recently, the ESISNA group has developed an effective way of exploiting on-surface chemistry to grow different nanostructures in sequential steps from the same molecular precursor. We have used different activation temperatures to…