The adsorption behaviours of Pt adatom on pristine and defective bilayer graphene

The structural stability and electronic property of metal Pt atom anchors on two typical substrates (including the pristine and defective bilayer graphene, PBG and DBG) are studied using the first-principles calculations. For the PBG sheets, the Pt atom at the bridge site of bottom layer has only one stable adsorption, which is more stable than other sites of the top layer. For the DBG sheets, the doped Pt below defective site has the larger adsorption energy than that of the upper one. Compared to the isolated graphene films, the Pt(111) substrate-supported graphene systems have effect on the adsorption energies of Pt adatom to some extent, but it does not affect the most preferable configurations. Moreover, the diffusion pathways and energy barriers of Pt adatom on PBG and DBG substrates are comparatively investigated. For the DBG sheets, the Pt dopant has smaller diffusion barrier on upper layer than that of the intercalation process through the defective site. Therefore, the Pt dopant prefers to diffuse on the top layer and then forms the metal impurity. This work provides valuable information on understanding the formation process and intercalation mechanism of metal adatom on graphene sheets.