We report on epitaxial growth of graphene on Pt(111) surface. It was found out that the proportion of different rotational domains varies with growth temperatur

Monodispersed crystalline platinum nanoclusters (NCs) have been grown on a template of graphene Moiré pattern formed on Ru(0001). The Pt NCs are directed to nucleate at a unique site in the Moiré unit cell, and grow in a layer-by-layer mode up to 4-atomic-layer height without coalescence at room temperature. The size of Pt NCs can be controlled by tuning the coverage. This system may find application in the study of Pt nanocatalyst, and the graphene Moiré pattern may be generally applied as template to direct self-assembled growth of metallic or nonmetallic NCs.

We report on tuning interfacial properties of epitaxially-grown graphenes with different kinds of metal substrates based on scanning tunneling microscopy experiments and density functional theory calculations. Three kinds of metal substrates, Ni(111), Pt(111), and Ru(0001), show different interactions with the epitaxially grown graphene at the interfaces. The different interfacial interaction making graphene n-type and p-type doped, leads to the polarity change of the thermoelectric property of the graphene/metal systems. These findings may give further insights to the interfacial interactions in the graphene/metal systems and promote the use of graphene-based heterostructures in devices.

Vanadium dioxide (VO₂) with its unique sharp resistivity change at the metal-insulator transition (MIT) has been extensively considered for the near-future terahertz/infrared devices and energy harvesting systems. Controlling the epitaxial quality and microstructures of vanadium dioxide thin films and understanding the metal-insulator transition behaviors are therefore critical to novel device development. The metal-insulator transition behaviors of the epitaxial vanadium dioxide thin films deposited on Al₂O₃ (0001) substrates were systematically studied by characterizing the temperature dependency of both Raman spectrum and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Our findings on the correlation between the nucleation dynamics of intermediate monoclinic (M2) phase with microstructures will open a new avenue for the design and integration of advanced heterostructures with controllable multifunctionalities for sensing and imaging system applications.