Aromatic structure degradation of single layer graphene on an amorphous silicon substrate in the presence of water, hydrogen and Extreme Ultraviolet light

In this paper we study the reaction of water and graphene under Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) irradiation and in the presence of hydrogen. In this work, single layer graphene (SLG) on amorphous Si as an underlying substrate was dosed with water (0.75 ML) and exposed to EUV (λ = 13.5 nm, 92 eV) with partial pressures of H2 in the background. The results show that the aromatic structure of graphene, when exposed to EUV and H2, breaks down into aryl ketones and enols of 1,3 di-ketone. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy shows that SLG oxidizes, with increasing H2 pressure leading to the grain boundary edges of graphene forming ketones and carboxylic acids. In situ and post exposure analyses also reveal that EUV exposure reduces the sp2 content of the graphene layer, with the sp3 content increasing, resulting in a more defective graphene layer.