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Chemically induced phase transition in low-dimensional structures

RSF grant

No. 21-12-00399

Competition 2021 “Conducting fundamental scientific research and exploratory scientific research by individual scientific groups”

Controlled change in the structure of nanomaterials at the atomic level is the most important task of modern materials science. The influence of the surface is expressed in the need to take into account the size of nanostructures when describing their stability. This problem is especially pronounced when studying the phase transformation of nanomaterials, when their energy begins to depend not only on external conditions, but also on the contribution of surface effects. For example, the classical Bundy phase diagram of carbon changes as the thickness of the carbon film decreases, the pressure of the graphite-diamond phase transition increases, which reflects an increase in the instability of diamond with a decrease in its size. Upon reaching the atomic thickness, diamond films should demonstrate a number of extremely attractive physical properties, but their synthesis requires fundamentally different approaches. Two ways of nanomaterial synthesis seem to be natural for today's science: "top-down" and "bottom-up" methods. The "top-down" method, when the macroscopic material is separated to the required nanostructure, was not considered, since it is probably impossible to obtain nanometer-thick diamond films by splitting a diamond crystal. The “bottom-up” method (the necessary nanostructure is synthesized from smaller nanostructures) seems to be the most attractive for this case, although it certainly requires overcoming a number of non-trivial scientific problems. The traditional method of chemical vapor deposition is inapplicable for solving the problem of obtaining diamonds of atomic thickness due to the high growth rate of diamond layers and their inhomogeneity at the atomic level. Therefore, in this paper, we will consider another option for obtaining diamond films, when the starting material is not steam, but a two-layer graphene film. The formation of diamond films occurs by a controlled chemical reaction of two graphene sheets with foreign atoms, mainly hydrogen or fluorine. We will test this method experimentally, and theoretically we will study in detail the transformation mechanism of graphene layers not only in the case of bilayer graphene, but also in other structures based on weakly bonded layers - two-layer carbon nanotubes and related nanomaterials.

The main participants of the project

First year results

Diamant structure

layers, systematization of the identified packages for further processing was carried out. Processing regimes for bilayer graphene transferred to a Si3N4 membrane in a growth chamber with hydrogen at different temperatures have been worked out. The controlled local reduction of a graphene oxide film by electron beam irradiation has been studied. The formation of bigraphene and its functionalization and modification with hydrogen have been studied. The structure and composition of the obtained nanomaterials and films based on one and two-layer graphene with different degrees of functionalization and modification have been studied. The formation of a diamond phase after the modification of two-layer graphene with hydrogen is shown. The stability of diamond films was theoretically studied at different concentrations of hydrogen atoms on their surface. The highest uniform density of the surface coverage is shown, at which a connection between the layers may not form at all. It has been shown that interlayer bonds are preserved only between carbon atoms in which at least two neighbors are connected to hydrogen. Bigraphene nucleation processes are simulated and the influence of point (vacancies and Stone-Wales defect) and one-dimensional (interface) defects on this process is considered. It has been established that point defects reduce the energy barrier of bigraphene hydrogenation, but this transition is still not barrier-free. The energy of hydrogen binding by atoms at the interface in bigraphene is slightly higher than the analogous value for ideal structures. In addition to systems with defects, the case of diamond formation at the edges of ideal bigraphene was also considered. It was found that, geometrically, hydrogen deposition proceeds along the edge line and binding with subsequent atoms located closer to the center of the structure becomes less favorable, however, of all the cases considered, diamond formation at the edge of bigraphene seems to be the most energetically favorable. The beginning of the nucleation of the diamond phase in the structure of bigraphene on a platinum substrate was studied by the adsorption of hydrogen atoms on the surface of bigraphene. Structures with packing of AB and AA' layers and arrangement of hydrogen on the “chair” and “boat” surfaces were calculated. The energy of such structures was calculated, and it was shown that with an increase in the hydrogen cluster in the case of AA' packing, no diamond nucleation occurs at all, while for AB packing it is necessary to overcome the nucleation barrier to form diamond. For the case of bigraphene without a substrate, there is no barrier; thus, it was shown that the platinum substrate does not facilitate diamond nucleation.

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Measuring structures were fabricated on Si/SiO2 and porous Al2O3 substrates from graphene films using photo- and electron lithography and their chemical modification was studied using Raman spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and current-voltage characteristics were measured. The effect of a chemically induced phase transition in bilayer graphene transferred to a langasite substrate and irradiated with a focused electron beam through a layer of polymethyl methacrylate was studied.

TTransport measurements show that the resistance of the graphene bilayer after irradiation with an electron beam increases significantly, and the linear dependence of the current on voltage in the bias voltage range from –1 to 1 V changes to nonlinear. This indicates the appearance of a barrier for carriers in the irradiated area. This result is explained within the framework of the theory of a chemically induced phase transition associated with the formation of sp3 bonds of carbon with hydrogen and oxygen. When a local area of the sample is irradiated with a focused electron beam, hydrogen is released from the destroyed polymer on one side, and oxygen is taken from the langasite substrate on the other side, forming strong bonds with graphene. As a result, a stable diamane nanostructure is formed in this region. The developed model of a diamane film located on a langasite substrate and functionalized with H and O atoms confirms experimental observations. The processes of nucleation of diamane from bigraphene on a metal substrate (platinum, nickel, copper) were modeled and compared, and the energy benefits of these processes were assessed. It was shown that nucleation on a nickel substrate occurs barrier-free due to the formation of metal-carbon chemical bonds, while the nucleation process on copper and platinum has an energy barrier, which allows us to conclude that platinum is preferably used as a source of hydrogen rather than an active substrate in such processes. A moment tensor potential has been prepared using machine learning to describe the nucleation of the sp3 phase in bigraphene with misoriented layers when hydrogen atoms are deposited on its surface. For experimental misorientation angles of layers, it is shown that at small angles, nucleation is energetically favorable, that is, a gradual increase in the area with interlayer bonds with the addition of hydrogen. At the same time, at large angles, chaotic addition of hydrogen with the formation of single interlayer bonds is more likely. For small misorientation angles, structures with the maximum possible size of diamond phases were constructed. It is shown that in this case the bigraphene film turns into a polycrystal with the dominant phase of hexagonal diamond (~50%) and cubic diamond (~30%). The size of diamond grains was also determined depending on the misorientation angle of the initial bigraphene: 0.095/sin(α) nm, 0.13/sin(α) nm and 0.06/sin(α) nm for grains with surfaces (0001), (10-10) and (111), respectively. Energetically favorable diamane structures with full surface coverage of H, -OH or peroxide functional groups have been determined. The thermodynamic stability range was then determined as a function of external pressure and chemical environment depending on the choice of precursor. In particular, it was found that the use of water as a source of oxygen requires the application of pressure to form stable oxidized diamane, which is in full agreement with experimental data.

During the first year of the project, experimental results were obtained confirming the predicted possibility of forming a diamond film by deposition of hydrogen on the surface of bigraphene. On the other hand, the theoretical studies carried out have expanded the understanding of the processes of formation of a two-dimensional diamond. The modes of formation of graphene layers, as well as methods for the transfer and deposition of graphene on a substrate for the formation of a bigraphene film, have been worked out. The study of the degree of misorientation of the obtained graphene layers was carried out to identify the stacking sequence of graphene atoms in two

The results of the work were regularly presented at conferences and seminars

1) Invited talk at the conference "New Carbon Nanomaterials: Ultrathin Diamond Films", December 6-9, 2021, Moscow, NUST MISIS

2) Sorokin P.B. “Modern advances in the study of ultrathin diamond films. Achievements and challenges” // 10th International Conference on Nanomaterials and Advanced Energy Storage Systems (INESS-2022), Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, 04.08.2022-06.08.2022. Invited talk

3) Varlamova L.A. Larionov K.V. Sorokin P.B. “Quantum chemical study of the structure and stability of nanosized diamond films passivated by oxygen-containing groups” // 18th Russian Symposium FOAMM-2022, New Athos, Abkhazia, August 15-26, 2022. Oral report

4) L.A. Varlamova, K.V. Larionov, S.V. Erokhin, P.B. Sorokin “Diamans: two-dimensional diamond-like films and their properties” // XIV Symposium “Thermodynamics and Materials Science”, Ekaterinburg, October 10-13, 2022. Poster presentation

5) Sorokin P.B. "The way to 2D diamond. Recent experimental results and theoretical insights" // 9th International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology, ChinaNANO2023, Beijing, China, August 26 - August 28, 2023

Invited talks at seminars:

1) Sorokin P.B. guest speaker in the popular science program of the VI "Gindin Festival" November 21, 2023, Chernogolovka

2) Sorokin P.B. “Nanotechnology: a revolution that is just beginning” // 7th meeting of the club of young scientists. Topic: "Nanotechnologies", 10/31/2023, Department of Education and Science of Moscow

3) Sorokin P.B. “Application of modeling methods at the atomic level to describe the physical properties of new materials” // Forum-exhibition of New Materials and Technologies AMTEXPO, Moscow, November 17, 2023.

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