Carbon K-edge electron-energy-loss near-edge structure in the reflection mode on graphene/Ni(111)

Electron-energy-loss near-edge structure (ELNES) in the transmission mode is a useful tool to investigate the properties of materials, in conjunction with transmission electron microscope (TEM) imaging. The ELNES technique has been extensively applied on graphene and other carbon-based materials. Of course, such method is applicable only on thin systems; thus, it cannot be used to investigate the properties of massive samples, or thin layers adsorbed on thick substrates, for example, graphene on metal supports. Here, we show that it is possible to use electron energy loss in the reflection mode to measure the fine structure of the carbon K-edge in monolayer graphene on Ni(111), thus demonstrating that reflection ELNES is a very sensitive tool, particularly useful in cases where the TEM-based ELNES cannot be applied.