Direct Measurement of Intrinsic Dirac Point and Fermi level at Graphene/Oxide interface and Its Band Alignment by Cavity Enhanced Internal Photoemission

Published

December 17, 2012

Author(s)

Kun Xu, Caifu Zeng, Qin Zhang, Rusen Yan, Peide Ye, Kang Wang, Alan C. Seabaugh, Huili G. Xing, John S. Suehle, Curt A. Richter, David J. Gundlach, Nhan V. Nguyen

Abstract

We report the first direct measurement of the Dirac point, the Fermi level, and the work function of graphene by performing internal photoemission measurements on a graphene/SiO2/Si structure with a unique optical-cavity enhanced test structure. A complete electronic band alignment at the graphene/SiO2/Si interfaces is accurately constructed. The observation of enhanced photoemission from a one-atom thick graphene layer was possible by taking advantage of the optical interference in the SiO2 cavity. The photoemission yield was found to follow the well-known linear density-of- states dispersion in the vicinity of the Dirac point. At the flat band condition, the Fermi level was extracted and found to reside 3.3 eV below the bottom of SiO2 conduction band. When combined with the shift of the Fermi level from the Dirac point we are able to unambiguously ascertain the position of the Dirac point at 3.6 eV with respect to the bottom of the SiO2 conduction band; yielding a work function of 4.5 eV which is in an excellent agreement with theory.

Citation

Nano Letters

Volume

13

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

graphene, work function, internal photoemission, band alignment, graphene-insulator-semiconductor

Citation

Xu, K. , Zeng, C. , Zhang, Q. , Yan, R. , Ye, P. , Wang, K. , Seabaugh, A. , Xing, H. , Suehle, J. , Richter, C. , Gundlach, D. and Nguyen, N. (2012), Direct Measurement of Intrinsic Dirac Point and Fermi level at Graphene/Oxide interface and Its Band Alignment by Cavity Enhanced Internal Photoemission, Nano Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=912242 (Accessed October 24, 2025)