Graphene is a thin, monoatomic layer of graphite. Despite the fact that it is produced virtually every time a pencil is used, it was first fabricated on silicon oxide substrates in 2004. Graphene shows remarkable electronic properties. Its valence and conduction bands touch, which makes graphene a zero gap metal or semiconductor, depending on its doping level. Around the Dirac point, the point in momentum space where the bands touch, the electronic dispersion relation is linear in momentum, mimicking the behavior of mass-less relativistic particles such as photons. Therefore graphene is an exciting condensed matter model system for relativistic physics. During the last four years, a quickly growing number of physicists has been conducting research on the electronic and optical properties of graphene. In our lab, spatially resolved Raman spectroscopy on mono- and bilayer graphene samples in low temperatures is carried out. Electrical transport measurements on gated samples are also under investigation.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1 shows a confocal reflectivity scan of a graphene sample. In the white regions, the graphene sheet is adhered to the bottom of 20 nm deep etched depressions in the silicon dioxide sample.

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