Interactive Microscopy of Graphene Nanostructures

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******TECHNICAL ABSTRACT*******Graphene is a remarkable newly isolated two-dimensional material that has novel physical properties and great potential for new nanotechnological advances. The central goals of this research project are to understand and control atomic-scale behavior in graphene nanostructures via newly developed techniques of "interactive microscopy". These methods allow graphene nanostructures to be not only probed at the atomic scale, but also to be manipulated. The strategy for this project revolves around the complementary use of scanning tunneling microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to characterize and manipulate graphene in a collaborative effort between the groups of M.F. Crommie and A. Zettl. Both microscopy techniques will be used in a coordinated, collaborative approach to explore the fundamental electronic and structural properties of graphene nanostructures such as edges, defects, nanoribbons, and nanoplatelets, and to correlate these properties with graphene nanodevice behavior. This project will provide scientific training to graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students in a strongly interdisciplinary area. *******NON-TECHNICAL ABSTRACT********Graphene is a remarkable new material that consists of a single sheet of carbon atoms chemically bonded in a periodic honeycomb pattern. This material has great promise for creating new electronic, magnetic, and mechanical devices that can be miniaturized beyond the level of current technology, with great potential advantages. To realize these advantages, however, the properties of graphene must be understood and controlled down to the atomic-scale (i.e., down to the size of single atoms). The central goal of this research project is to perform this task via newly developed interactive microscopy techniques. These techniques allow graphene to not only be imaged at atomic length scales, but also to be manipulated and changed at this same small length scale. Different state-of-the-art microscopy techniques with atomic-scale spatial resolution will be used in a coordinated, collaborative approach to explore the fundamental electrical and structural properties of graphene devices having different shapes and disorder properties at very small length scales. Critically important shapes include, for example, ribbons of graphene that have a width in the range of 10 nanometers. This project will provide interdisciplinary scientific training to graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students in the most powerful modern methods of microscopy and device characterization.