A simple TEM method for fast thickness characterization of suspended graphene flakes

Abstract

We present a simple and fast method for thickness characterization of suspended graphene flakes that is based on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. For this method, the dynamical theory of electron diffraction (Bloch-wave approach in two-beam case approximation) was used to obtain an analytical expression for the intensity of the transmitted electron beam I0(t), as function of the specimen thickness t for thin samples (t<< λ; where λ is the absorption constant for graphite). We show that in thin graphite crystals the transmitted intensity is a linear function of the thickness. To obtain a more quantitative description of I0(t), high resolution (HR) TEM simulations are performed using the Bloch wave approach of the JEMS software. From such calculations, we obtain λ for a 001 zone axis orientation, in a two-beam case and in a low symmetry orientation. Subsequently, HR (used to determine t) and bright-field (to measure I0(0) and I0(t)) images were acquired to experimentally determine λ. We obtain that the experimental value in the low symmetry orientation is close to the calculated value (i.e. λ=225 nm for 300 kV accelerating voltage and 3 mrad collection angle). The simulations also show that the linear approximation obtained from the analytical expression is valid up to a sample thickness of several ten nanometers, depending on the orientation. When compared to standard techniques for thickness determination of graphene/graphite, the method we propose has the advantage of being relatively simple and fast, requiring only the acquisition of bright-field images.