A TPD-based determination of the graphite interlayer cohesion energy.

Temperature Programmed Desorption (TPD) spectroscopy was used to determine the binding energies of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons C n H m (22 ≤ n ≤ 60) with highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. These energies were then used to estimate the dispersive graphite interlayer cohesion by means of a refined extrapolation method proposed by Björk et al. This yields a cohesion energy of 44.0 ± 3.8 meV per carbon atom. We discuss some limits of the TPD-based approach and contrast our values with previous determinations of the interlayer cohesion energy of graphite.