Synchrotron X-ray standing wave Characterization of atomic arrangement at interface between transferred graphene and -AlO(0001)

Entani, Shiro*; Honda, Mitsunori   ; Naramoto, Hiroshi*; Li, S.*; Sakai, Seiji*

Graphene is expected to be one of the most promising materials for nanoelectronics and spintronics. In most graphene-based devices, the graphene channel is placed on insulating substrates. Therefore, the study of inter-facial interactions between graphene and the insulator surface is of critical importance. In this study, the vertical arrangement of graphene which is transferred on -AlO(0001) has been studied by normal incidence X-ray standing wave (NIXSW) technique. The analysis of the NIXSW profile reveals that the graphene layer is located at 3.57 () above the -AlO(0001) surface, which is larger than the interlayer distance of graphite at 3.356 (). Micro- Raman spectroscopy shows that the transferred graphene has a limited spatial distribution of hole concentration. The present study shows that transferred graphene on the sapphire substrate followed by vacuum-annealing has an atomically flat surface free from residual contaminations such as organic compounds and there occurs the hole-doping in graphene.