Abstract

Being of atomic thickness, graphene is the thinnest imaginable membrane. While graphene's basal plane is highly impermeable at the molecular level, the impermeability is, in practice, compromised by leakage pathways located at the graphene-substrate interface. Here, we provide a kinetic analysis of such interface-mediated leakage by probing gas trapped in graphene-sealed SiO2 cavities versus time and temperature using electron energy loss spectroscopy. The results show that gas leakage exhibits an Arrhenius-type temperature dependency with apparent activation energies between 0.2 and 0.7 eV. Surprisingly, the interface leak rate can be improved by several orders of magnitude by thermal processing, which alters the kinetic parameters of the temperature dependency. The present study thus provides fundamental insight into the leakage mechanism while simultaneously demonstrating thermal processing as a generic approach for tightening graphene-based-seals with applications within chemistry and biology.

Original languageEnglish
JournalNanoscale
Volume15
Pages (from-to)16896-16903
Number of pages8
ISSN2040-3364
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

This study was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 758495) and the Danish National Research Foundation (Grant No. DNRF146). The authors acknowledge the cleanroom facilities at DTU Nanolab – National Centre for Nano Fabrication and Characterization and DTU Physics – Center for Nanostructured Graphene for access to equipment used to fabricate samples. Specifically, the authors are grateful for fruitful discussions with Ass. Prof. Tim Booth and Prof. Peter Bøggild from DTU Physics – Center for Nanostructured Graphene. In addition, we thank Topsoe A/S for access to their ETEM facility and technical support from Topsoe A/S employees Sven Ullmann and Sebastian Pirel Fredsgaard Jespersen.

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