Spatially Resolved Modification of Graphene’s Band Structure by Surface Oxygen Atoms

Abstract

We present the spatially resolved modification of the topography and electronic properties of monolayer graphene by a low dosage of atomic oxygen on the nanometer scale. Using the combination of an ultrahigh-vacuum scanning tunneling microscope and a gas beam of oxygen atoms, we show that the surface O-atoms, even at a low coverage of O/C = ∼1/150, serve as p-type dopants that leads to site-dependent partial and full graphene band modifications up to a gap of a few hundred millielectronvolts. The degree of modification and the number of O-atom-induced charge-holes per area are inversely proportional to the distance between the measuring position and the location of the nearest adsorbate. However, the number of holes contributed per oxygen atom is found to be a site-independent constant of 0.15 ± 0.05. For a small population of adsorbates taller than 4 A, the graphene energy bands are no longer resolved; instead, our tunneling spectra show very spatially localized but highly dense states over a wide potent...