AFM local oxidation nanolithography of graphene

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for precise local oxidation nanolithography on graphene using an atomic force microscope, enabling the creation of nanoscale patterns like nanoribbons and nanorings with sub-nanometer accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel AFM-based technique for patterning graphene with high precision, including the ability to create both trenches and surface bumps.

Findings

Fabricated 25-nm-wide graphene nanoribbons.

Created sub-micron graphene nanorings.

Able to write trenches or bumps depending on conditions.

Abstract

We demonstrate the local oxidation nanopatterning of graphene films by an atomic force microscope. The technique provides a method to form insulating trenches in graphene flakes and to fabricate nanodevices with sub-nm precision. We demonstrate fabrication of a 25-nm-wide nanoribbon and sub-micron size nanoring from a graphene flake. We also found that we can write either trenches or bumps on the graphene surface depending on the lithography conditions. We attribute the bumps to partial oxidation of the surface and incorporation of oxygen into the graphene lattice.