Strain-engineered wrinkles on graphene using polymeric actuators

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to create controlled wrinkles in graphene using polymeric micro-actuators, enabling precise strain engineering to tune its electronic and optical properties for advanced material applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel technique for deterministic buckling and wrinkle formation in graphene via polymeric actuators, allowing arbitrary geometries and potential for iterative surface topography tuning.

Findings

Controlled buckling delamination of graphene achieved

Polymeric actuators enable arbitrary wrinkle geometries

Method applicable to other 2D materials like transition metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

The electronic and optical properties of graphene can be precisely tuned by generating deterministic arrangements of strain features. In this paper, we report the formation of widespread and controlled buckling delamination of monolayer graphene deposited on hexagonal boron-nitride promoted by a significant squeezing of the graphene flake and induced by polymeric micro-actuators. The flexibility of this method offers a promising technique to create arbitrary buckling geometries and arrays of wrinkles which could also be subjected to iterative folding-unfolding cycles. Further development of this method could pave the way to tune the properties of several kinds of other two-dimensional materials, such as transition metal dichalcogenides, by tailoring their surface topography.