I am interested in what will happen if we take graphene which growing on Ru(0001) or Ir(111) out from UHV chamber to air? From prof. Salmeron's paper ( J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 5662−5668), I learned that water can intercalate into the interface between Ru(0001) and epitaxial graphene, and with the following, the graphene will be split. But they studied this under low temperature (77K). I am considering whether the moisture in air will cause this phenomenon in room temperature as well...
But on the other hand, both of Ru(0001) or Ir(111) substrate and graphene themselves should be stable in air. Whether the sample (epitaxial graphene on Ru(0001) or Ir(111)) is also stable in air? Or whether the sample will be contaminated very easily when it is exposed to air?
Hi Shaoxian,
the answer to your question depends mostly on the requirements imposed on the sample and on the sample properties. From my experience in both hi-res XPS and STM, if the coverage is approaching 1 ML, that is, all the surface is covered with graphene, it survives a few hours in ambient conditions/in air. Most likely, there will be some intercalation of either water or molecular oxygen (or both) into graphene/ME interface, and it will split upon annealing. But the majority of the graphene flakes will stay intact. If your coverage is considerably less than 1 ML, say, 0.5 or less, and you have a lot of defects/grain boundaries, then most likely all of your sample will be intercalated + the edges might get functionalized by CO/O hydroxyl/epoxy/ether groups, which will later also contribute to etching of your sample when you try to anneal it.
Hope this answers your question
BR
Nikolay
Hello Nikolay, Thank you very much for your answer.
This really helped me! Thank you very much.
Nikolay A Vinogradov
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