title: Atom-by-atom nucleation and growth of graphene nanopores.
abstract: Graphene is an ideal thin membrane substrate for creating molecule-scale devices. Here we demonstrate a scalable method for creating extremely small structures in graphene with atomic precision. It consists of inducing defect nucleation centers with energetic ions, followed by edge-selective electron recoil sputtering. As a first application, we create graphene nanopores with radii as small as 3 Å, which corresponds to 10 atoms removed. We observe carbon atom removal from the nanopore edge in situ using an aberration-corrected electron microscope, measure the cross-section for the process, and obtain a mean edge atom displacement energy of 14.1 ± 0.1 eV. This approach does not require focused beams and allows scalable production of single nanopores and arrays of monodisperse nanopores for atomic-scale selectively permeable membranes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Golovchenko
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004735:Energy Transfer; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission / Q000379:methods*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D058608:Nanopores / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D006108:Graphite