van der Waals epitaxy of CdS thin films on single-crystalline graphene

van der Waals epitaxy (vdWE) of three-dimensional CdS thin films on both single-crystalline graphene/Cu(111)/spinel(111) and single-crystalline graphene/SiO2/Si substrates is achieved via thermal evaporation. X-ray and electron backscatter diffraction pole figures reveal that the CdS films are a Wurtzite structure with a weak epitaxy on graphene and accompanied with a fiber texture background. The epitaxial alignment between CdS and graphene is observed to be an unusual non-parallel epitaxial relationship with a 30 degrees rotation between the unit vectors of CdS and graphene. A geometrical model based on the minimization of superlattice area mismatch is employed to calculate possible interface lattice arrangement. It is found that the 30 degrees rotation between CdS and graphene is indeed the most probable interface epitaxial lattice alignment. The vdWE of CdS on graphene, transferrable to arbitrary substrates, may represent a step forward for the growth of quality CdS thin films on arbitrary substrates through a graphene buffer. Published by AIP Publishing.