Direct transmission electron microscopy observation of the oriented edge-attachment processes between single-layer graphene flakes

Abstract

We reported on the direct observation of oriented attachment (OA) type edge-attachment processes during single-layer graphene flake (GF) merging using a Cs-corrected transmission electron microscope. Such a process was accompanied by e-beam induced graphene edge re-connection and was realized to be energetically favored. Details of the seamless OA processes including the in-plane rotation and alignment of GFs as well as the local structure reconstruction were revealed. It is suggested that such a mechanism may work in a self-initiated mode and induce the continuous in-plane graphene growth.