By harnessing the weak van der Waals forces that bind layers of 2D materials together, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis; Ajou University in Suwon, South Korea; Chonnam National University in Gwangju, South Korea; and Sungkyunkwan University in Suwon, South Korea, have demonstrated a nondestructive method to comprehensively map the grain structure and crystal orientations of 2D materials. The key innovation lies in using a filter made from a single layer of high-quality, single-crystal graphene with a known orientation as a reference. An unknown sample is placed on top of this filter to create a temporary stack. By shining laser light on the stack and collecting the Raman signal, the researchers can map out the location and orientation of individual grains in the sample with sub-micron resolution.
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