  Intercalation of atomic species through epitaxial graphene layers began only
a few years following its initial report in 2004. The impact of intercalation
on the electronic properties of the graphene is well known; however, the
intercalant itself can also exhibit intriguing properties not found in nature.
This suggests that a shift in the focus of epitaxial graphene intercalation
studies may lead to fruitful exploration of many new forms of traditionally 3D
materials. In the following forward-looking review, we summarize the primary
techniques used to achieve and characterize EG intercalation, and introduce a
new, facile approach to readily achieve metal intercalation at the
graphene/silicon carbide interface. We show that simple thermal
evaporation-based methods can effectively replace complicated synthesis
techniques to realize large-scale intercalation of non-refractory metals. We
also show that these methods can be extended to the formation of compound
materials based on intercalation. Two-dimensional (2D) silver (2D-Ag) and
large-scale 2D gallium nitride (2D-GaNx) are used to demonstrate these
approaches.
