The synthesis of transition metals in a two-dimensional (2D) fashion has attracted growing attention for both fundamental and application-oriented investigations, such as 2D magnetism, nanoplasmonics and non-linear optics. However, the large-area synthesis of this class of materials in a single-layer form poses non-trivial difficulties. Here we present the synthesis of a large-area 2D gold layer, stabilized in between silicon carbide and monolayer (ML) graphene. We show that the 2D-Au ML is a semiconductor with the valence band maximum 50 meV below the Fermi level. The graphene and gold layers are largely non-interacting, thereby defining a novel class of van der Waals heterostructure. The 2D-Au bands, exhibit a 225 meV spin-orbit splitting along the {\Gamma K} direction, making it appealing for spin-related applications. By tuning the amount of gold at the SiC/graphene interface, we induce a semiconductor to metal transition in the 2D-Au, which was never observed before and hosts great interest for fundamental physics.

Structured Silicon Carbide was proposed to be an ideal template for the production of arrays of edge specific graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), which could be used as a base material for graphene transistors. We prepared periodic arrays of nanoscaled stripe‐mesas on SiC surfaces using electron beam lithography and reactive ion etching. Subsequent epitaxial graphene growth by annealing is differentiated between the basal‐plane mesas and the faceting stripe walls as monitored by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM). Microscopic low energy electron diffraction (μ‐LEED) revealed that the graphene ribbons on the facetted mesa side walls grow in epitaxial relation to the basal‐plane graphene with an armchair orientation at the facet edges. The π‐band system of the ribbons exhibits linear bands with a Dirac like shape corresponding to monolayer graphene as identified by angle‐resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES).

We deposited metals (Ti, Co, Pd) typically used as seed layers for contacts on epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001) and studied the early stages of growth in the sub‐monolayer regime by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM). All three metals do not wet the substrate and Ostwalt ripening occurs at temperatures below 400 K. The analysis of the epitaxial orientation of the metal adislands revealed their specific alignment to the graphene lattice. It is found that the apparent height of the islands as measured by STM strongly deviates from their true topographic height. This is interpreted as an indication of the presence of scattering processes within the metal particles that increase the transparency of the metal‐graphene interface for electrons. Even large islands are easily picked up by the tip of the STM allowing insight into the bonding between metal island and graphene surface and into mechanisms leading to metal intercalation.

Electronic devices based on graphene technology are catching on rapidly and the ability to engineer graphene properties at the nanoscale is becoming, more than ever, indispensable. Here, we present a procedure of graphene functionalization on SiC(0001) that paves the way towards the fabrication of complex graphene electronic chips. The procedure resides on the well-known ion-implantation technique. The efficiency of the working principle is demonstrated by the intercalation of the epitaxial graphene layer on SiC(0001) with Bi atoms, which was not possible following standard procedures. The investigation of the obtained graphene system reveals no clear spin-orbit coupling enhancement expected by theory in addition to the presence of residual structural defects. Our graphene/SiC(0001) intercalation procedure puts forward the ion-beam lithography to nanostructure and functionalize desired graphene chips.

The recent demonstration of saturable absorption and negative optical conductivity in the Terahertz range in graphene has opened up new opportunities for optoelectronic applications based on this and other low dimensional materials. Recently, population inversion across the Dirac point has been observed directly by time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (tr-ARPES), revealing a relaxation time of only ∼130 femtoseconds. This severely limits the applicability of single layer graphene to, for example, Terahertz light amplification. Here we use tr-ARPES to demonstrate long-lived population inversion in bilayer graphene. The effect is attributed to the small band gap found in this compound. We propose a microscopic model for these observations and speculate that an enhancement of both the pump photon energy and the pump fluence may further increase this lifetime.

The realization of ballistic graphene pn-junctions is an essential task in order to study Klein tunneling phenomena. Here we show that intercalation of Ge under the buffer layer of pre-structured SiC-samples succeeds to make truly nano-scaled pn-junctions. By means of local tunneling spectroscopy the junction width is found to be as narrow as 5 nm which is a hundred times smaller compared to electrically gated structures. The ballistic transmission across the junction is directly proven by systematic transport measurements with a 4-tip STM. Various npn- and pnp-junctions are studied with respect to the barrier length. The pn-junctions are shown to act as polarizer and analyzer with the second junction becoming transparent in case of a fully ballistic barrier. This can be attributed to the almost full suppression of electron transmission through the junction away from normal incidence.

The optical properties of graphene are made unique by the linear band structure and the vanishing density of states at the Dirac point. It has been proposed that even in the absence of a bandgap, a relaxation bottleneck at the Dirac point may allow for population inversion and lasing at arbitrarily long wavelengths. Furthermore, efficient carrier multiplication by impact ionization has been discussed in the context of light harvesting applications. However, all of these effects are difficult to test quantitatively by measuring the transient optical properties alone, as these only indirectly reflect the energy- and momentum-dependent carrier distributions. Here, we use time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses to directly probe the non-equilibrium response of Dirac electrons near the K-point of the Brillouin zone. In lightly hole-doped epitaxial graphene samples, we explore excitation in the mid- and near-infrared, both below and above the minimum photon energy for direct interband transitions. Whereas excitation in the mid-infrared results only in heating of the equilibrium carrier distribution, interband excitations give rise to population inversion, suggesting that terahertz lasing may be possible. However, in neither excitation regime do we find any indication of carrier multiplication, questioning the applicability of graphene for light harvesting.