Preservation of the Pt(100) surface reconstruction after growth of a continuous layer of graphene

Scanning tunneling microscopy shows that a layer of graphene can be grown on the hex-reconstructed Pt (100) surface and that the reconstruction is preserved after growth. A continuous sheet of graphene can be grown across domain boundaries and step edges without loss of periodicity or change in direction. Density functional theory calculations on a simple model system support the observation that the graphene can have different rotation angles relative to the hex-reconstructed Pt surface. The graphene sheet direction can be changed by incorporating pentagon-heptagon defects giving rise to accommodation of edge dislocations. The defect formation energy and the induced buckling of the graphene have been characterized by DFT calculations. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.