Published in Phys. Rev. B 87, 041406(R) (2013).

Low-energy Electron Reflectivity from Graphene

R. M. Feenstra,¹ N. Srivastava,¹ Qin Gao,¹ M. Widom,¹ Bogdan Diaconescu,² Taisuke Ohta,² G. L. Kellogg,² J. T. Robinson,³ and I. V. Vlassiouk⁴
¹Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
²Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185
³Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375
⁴Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831

Abstract

Low-energy reflectivity of electrons from single- and multi-layer graphene is examined both theoretically and experimentally. A series of minima in the reflectivity over the energy range of 0 – 8 eV are found, with the number of minima depending on the number of graphene layers. Using first-principles computations, it is demonstrated that a free standing n-layer graphene slab produces reflectivity minima. This same result is also found experimentally for graphene supported on SiO₂. For graphene bonded onto other substrates it is argued that a similar series of reflectivity minima is expected, although in certain cases an additional minimum occurs, at an energy that depends on the graphene-substrate separation and the effective potential in that space.

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