Modulating the Electronic Properties of Monolayer Graphene Using a Periodic Quasi-One-Dimensional Potential Generated by Hex-Reconstructed Au(001)

The structural and electronic properties of monolayer graphene synthesized on a periodically reconstructed substrate can be widely modulated by the generation of superstructure patterns, thereby producing interesting physical properties, such as magnetism and superconductivity. Herein, using a facile chemical vapor deposition method, we successfully synthesized high-quality monolayer graphene with a uniform thickness on Au foils. The hex-reconstruction of Au(001), which is characterized by striped patterns with a periodicity of 1.44 nm, promoted the formation of a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) graphene superlattice, which served as a periodic quasi-1D modulator for the graphene overlayer, as evidenced by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. Intriguingly, two new Dirac points were generated for the quasi-1D graphene superlattice located at -1.73 +/- 0.02 and 1.12 +/- 0.12 eV. Briefly, this work demonstrates that the periodic modulation effect of reconstructed metal substrates can dramatically alter the electronic properties of graphene and provides insight into the modulation of these properties using 1D potentials.