Abstract
The quest for materials capable of realizing the next generation of electronic and photonic devices continues to fuel research on the electronic, optical and vibrational properties of graphene. Few-layer graphene (FLG) flakes with less than ten layers each show a distinctive band structure. Thus, there is an increasing interest in the physics and applications of FLGs. Raman spectroscopy is one of the most useful and versatile tools to probe graphene samples. Here, we uncover the interlayer shear mode of FLGs, ranging from bilayer graphene (BLG) to bulk graphite, and suggest that the corresponding Raman peak measures the interlayer coupling. This peak scales from ~43 cm−1 in bulk graphite to ~31 cm−1 in BLG. Its low energy makes it sensitive to near-Dirac point quasiparticles. Similar shear modes are expected in all layered materials, providing a direct probe of interlayer interactions.
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Acknowledgements
We thank E. McCann, M. Koshino and T. Thonhauser for useful discussions. This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) Grant No. G2009CB929301; National Science Foundation of China grants 10934007, 10874177, 10874175, 60878025; European Research Council grants NANOPOTS and BIHSNAM; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant EP/G042357/1; a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award; European Union grants RODIN and Marie Curie ITN-GENIUS (PITN- GA-2010-264694); and Nokia Research Centre, Cambridge.
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A.C.F. and P.H.T. conceived the project. P.H.T. designed the measurement set-up. P.H.T., W.P.H., W.J.Z and A.L. prepared the samples and performed spectroscopic measurements and analysis. N.B., N.M., G.S., Z.H.W., H.W., K.C., Y.F.W., N.P., P.H.T. and A.C.F. performed ab initio calculations and analytic modelling. A.C.F., P.H.T., N.B. and N.M. wrote the paper.
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Tan, P., Han, W., Zhao, W. et al. The shear mode of multilayer graphene. Nature Mater 11, 294–300 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3245
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3245
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