Density Functional Theory Study of the Adsorption of Metal Adatoms on Graphene

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the influence of the interaction between graphene and other materials as a basis for controlling the electronic structure of nanocarbon materials. First-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) were performed on the optimized structure, adsorption energies and electronic states when copper and aluminum atoms were placed on graphene. As a result, we found that copper and aluminum are stable at the bridge and the hollow site, respectively. It was found that the adsorption energy of aluminum atom on graphene is larger than that of copper atom. It is considered that the difference in adsorption energy is caused by the difference in the dominant electron orbitals of the copper atom and the aluminum atom.