Computer study of the removal of Cu from the graphene surface using Ar clusters

[Display omitted] •The Ar13 bombardment of copper film on graphene has been simulated using molecular dynamics.•Incident angle θ=45° is the most effective one for graphene cleaning of copper.•Local stresses in graphene relax slowly due to the presence of hard bonds.•Cluster bombardment of the target leads to the large surface roughness of graphene. The method of molecular dynamics has been used to study the bombardment of a copper film on supported graphene by Ar13 clusters with kinetic energies of 5, 10, 20 and 30eV and different angles of incidence. It is obtained that the cluster energy should be in the interval 20–30eV for effective graphene cleaning. There is no cleaning effect at vertical incidence (θ=0°) of Ar13 clusters. The bombardments at 45° and 90° incident angles are the most effective ones at a moderate and big amount of deposited copper respectively.