2017/02/26 by Wen-Xiao Wang, Yi-Wen Wei, Si-Yu Li +5 · 19 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atom (system on chip) #Atomic physics #Carbon Nanotubes in Composites #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Computational chemistry #Dissociation (chemistry) #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Hydrogen #Hydrogen atom #Materials science #Molecular dynamics #Molecule #Nanotechnology #Physical chemistry #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Scanning tunneling microscope #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #van der Waals force
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.97.085407
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 97(8) (American Physical Society) · 5 figures
arxiv created 2017/02/26 · openalex publication_date 2018/02/06 · arxiv updated 2018/02/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The interlayer gallery between two adjacent sheets of van der Waals materials is expected to modify properties of atoms and molecules confined at the atomic interfaces. Here, we directly image individual hydrogen atom intercalated between two graphene sheets and investigate its dynamics by scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). The intercalated hydrogen atom is found to be remarkably different from atomic hydrogen chemisorbed on the external surface of graphene. Our STM measurements, complemented by first-principles calculations, show that the hydrogen atom intercalated between two graphene sheets has dramatically reduced potential barriers for elementary migration steps. Especially, the confined atomic hydrogen dissociation energy from one of the graphene sheet is reduced to 0.34 eV, which is only about a third of a hydrogen atom chemisorbed on the external surface of graphene. This offers a unique platform for direct imaging of the atomic dynamics of confined atoms. Our results suggest that the atomic interfaces of van der Waals materials provide a confined environment to tune the dynamics process of confined atoms or molecules.