Field emission from vertically aligned few-layer graphene

We report a naturally-occurring two-dimensional material (graphene that can be viewed as a gigantic flat fullerene molecule, describe its electronic properties and demonstrate all-metallic field-effect transistor, which uniquely exhibits ballistic transport at submicron distances even at room temperature.

When electrons are confined in two-dimensional (2D) materials, quantum mechanically enhanced transport phenomena, as exemplified by the quantum Hall effects (QHE), can be observed. Graphene, an isolated single atomic layer of graphite, is an ideal realization of such a 2D system. Here, we report an experimental investigation of magneto transport in a high mobility single layer of graphene. Adjusting the chemical potential using the electric field effect, we observe an unusual half integer QHE for both electron and hole carriers in graphene. Vanishing effective carrier masses is observed at Dirac point in the temperature dependent Shubnikov de Haas oscillations, which probe the 'relativistic' Dirac particle-like dispersion. The relevance of Berry's phase to these experiments is confirmed by the phase shift of magneto-oscillations, related to the exceptional topology of the graphene band structure.

We report free-standing atomic crystals that are strictly 2D and can be viewed as individual atomic planes pulled out of bulk crystals or as unrolled single-wall nanotubes. By using micromechanical cleavage, we have prepared and studied a variety of 2D crystals, including single layers of boron nitride, graphite, several dichalcogenides and complex oxides. These atomically-thin sheets (essentially gigantic 2D molecules unprotected from the immediate environment) are stable under ambient conditions, exhibit high crystal quality and are continuous on a macroscopic scale.