Hierarchy of Graphene Wrinkles Induced by Thermal Strain Engineering

TL;DR

This study investigates the hierarchical wrinkling patterns in graphene induced by thermal strain, demonstrating that the wrinklon theory accurately describes the evolution of wrinkle wavelength with distance from the edge.

Contribution

We experimentally validate the wrinklon theory for graphene wrinkles and derive an equation linking wrinkle wavelength to distance, considering both bending and stretching energies.

Findings

Wrinkling hierarchy follows the wrinklon theory.

The derived equation accurately predicts wrinkle evolution.

Classical membrane behavior persists down to 100 nm wavelengths.

Abstract

Graphene is only one atom thick and becomes the ultimate thin film to explore membrane physics and mechanics. Here we study hierarchy of graphene wrinkles induced by thermal strain engineering and demonstrate that the wrinkling hierarchy can be accounted for by the wrinklon theory. We derive an equation {\lambda} = (ky)0.5 explaining evolution of wrinkling wavelength {\lambda} with the distance to the edge y observed in our experiment by considering both bending energy and stretching energy of the graphene flakes. The prefactor k in the equation is determined to be about 55 nm, which is independent of the size of the graphene flakes. Our experimental result indicates that the classical membrane behavior of graphene persists down to about 100 nm of the wrinkling wavelength.