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Updated: Apr 21, 2026

Fabrication of Gate-tunable Graphene Devices for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies with Coulomb Impurities
Published on: July 24, 2015
Atomic level spatial variations of energy states along graphene edges
Jamie H Warner1, Yung-Chang Lin, Kuang He
1Department of Materials, University of Oxford , Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PH, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
The local atomic bonding of carbon atoms around the edge of graphene is examined by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) combined with electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). High-resolution 2D maps of the EELS combined with atomic resolution annular dark field STEM images enables correlations between the carbon K-edge EELS and the atomic structure. We show that energy states of graphene edges vary across individual atoms along the edge according to their specific C-C bonding, as well as perpendicular to the edge. Unique spectroscopic peaks from the EELS are assigned to specific C atoms, which enables unambiguous spectroscopic fingerprint identification for the atomic structure of graphene edges with unprecedented detail.
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