The electronic structure of epitaxial graphene—A view from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Abstract

This article analyzes the electronic structure of epitaxial graphene using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). It first describes how the carbon atoms in graphene are arranged before discussing the growth and characterization of graphene samples. It then considers the electronic structure of epitaxial graphene, along with the gap opening in single-layer epitaxial graphene. It also examines possible mechanisms for the gap opening in graphene, including quantum confinement, mixing of the states between the Brillouin zone corner K points induced by scattering, and hybridization of the valence and conduction bands caused by symmetry breaking in carbon sublattices. Clear deviations from the conical dispersions are observed near the Diracpoint energy, which can be interpreted as a gap opening attributed to graphene–substrate interaction. Graphene–substrate interaction is thus a promising route for engineering the bandgap in graphene.