Electronic, wetting, stability and magnetic properties of graphene

Abstract

We shall present extensive studies on electrical spectroscopy of graphene, wetting properties using frictional studies, ripple formation of graphene sheets at its edges using atomic force microscopy (AFM). We shall address several issues such as: (1) how does the electrical property of the graphene sheet changes when the graphene sheet is displaced by shear forces from over highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate? (2) how does the electrical property of the displaced graphene sheet change across it edges? (3) what is its wetting properties at the edges and (4) ripple formation on graphene sheet. We also report some theoretical understanding of graphene using molecular orbital calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). We shall show that ripple formation is the inherent nature of the graphene sheet and provide structural stability to graphene sheet, associated with unique mechanical and electronic properties. Electronic population analysis of the highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) clearly shows that significantly more electronic crowd is located near the vacant site giving rise to magnetism in graphene.