2015/01/01 by Laurentiu E. Dinca, F. De Marchi, Jennifer MacLeod +5 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · Engineering · #Graphene research and applications #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures
paper · doi:10.1039/c4nr07057g
openalex publication_date 2015/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate, using scanning tunnelling microscopy, the adsorption of pentacene on Ni(111) at room temperature and the behaviour of these monolayer films with annealing up to 700 °C. We observe the conversion of pentacene into graphene, which begins from as low as 220 °C with the coalescence of pentacene molecules into large planar aggregates. Then, by annealing at 350 °C for 20 minutes, these aggregates expand into irregular domains of graphene tens of nanometers in size. On surfaces where graphene and nickel carbide coexist, pentacene shows preferential adsorption on the nickel carbide phase. The same pentacene to graphene transformation was also achieved on Cu(111), but at a higher activation temperature, producing large graphene domains that exhibit a range of moiré superlattice periodicities.