Supermetallic conductivity in bromine-intercalated graphite

Abstract

Exposure of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite to bromine vapor gives rise to in-plane charge conductivities which increase monotonically with intercalation time toward values (for ~6 at% Br) that are significantly higher than Cu at temperatures down to 5 K. Magnetotransport, optical reflectivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements confirm that the Br dopes the graphene sheets with holes while simultaneously increasing the interplanar separation. The increase of mobility (~ 5E4 cm^2/Vs at T=300 K) and resistance anisotropy together with the reduced diamagnetic susceptibility of the intercalated samples suggests that the observed supermetallic conductivity derives from a parallel combination of weakly-coupled hole-doped graphene sheets.

5 pages, 4 figures