Growth of N-doped graphene from nitrogen containing aromatic compounds: the effect of precursors on the doped site

Abstract

Doping of nitrogen into the graphene lattice tunes and tailors its electronic properties. To elucidate the doping mechanism and develop a method of controlling the doped structure, nitrogen doped graphene was synthesized from four kinds of nitrogen-containing aromatic compounds: quinoline, pyridine, pyrrole, and pyrimidine on Pt(111) at a variety of temperatures. The doped site and amount of nitrogen in the synthesized graphene depended considerably on the source molecule. Especially, nitrogen doped graphene with pyridinic-N and pyrrolic-N were predominantly obtained from quinoline and pyrrole sources. Comparison between the graphenes from different molecules indicated that structure and thermal stability of the source molecules together with their structural affinity to the honeycomb lattice determined the doping amount and the doped site.