Rotating Anisotropic Crystalline Silicon Nanoclusters in Graphene

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• 作者：Qu Chen ; Ai Leen Koh ; Alex W. Robertson ; Kuang He ; Sungwoo Lee ; Euijoon Yoon ; Gun-Do Lee ; Robert Sinclair ; Jamie H. Warner
• 刊名：ACS Nano
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：October 27, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：9
• 期：10
• 页码：9497-9506
• 全文大小：1009K
• ISSN：1936-086X

文摘

The atomic structure and dynamics of silicon nanoclusters covalently bonded to graphene are studied using aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy. We show that as the cluster size increases to 4鈥?0 atoms, ordered crystalline cubic phases start to emerge. Anisotropic crystals are formed due to higher stability of the Si鈥揅 bond under electron beam irradiation compared to the Si鈥揝i bond. Dynamics of the anisotropic crystalline Si nanoclusters reveal that they can rotate perpendicular to the graphene plane, with oscillations between the two geometric configurations driven by local volume constraints. These results provide important insights into the crystalline phases of clusters of inorganic dopants in graphene at the intermediate size range between isolated single atoms and larger bulk 2D forms.