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Controlled ripple texturing of suspended graphene and ultrathin graphite membranes

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 562–566 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Graphene is nature's thinnest elastic material and displays exceptional mechanical1,2 and electronic properties3,4,5. Ripples are an intrinsic feature of graphene sheets6 and are expected to strongly influence electronic properties by inducing effective magnetic fields and changing local potentials7,8,9,10,11,12. The ability to control ripple structure in graphene could allow device design based on local strain13 and selective bandgap engineering14. Here, we report the first direct observation and controlled creation of one- and two-dimensional periodic ripples in suspended graphene sheets, using both spontaneously and thermally generated strains. We are able to control ripple orientation, wavelength and amplitude by controlling boundary conditions and making use of graphene's negative thermal expansion coefficient (TEC), which we measure to be much larger than that of graphite. These results elucidate the ripple formation process, which can be understood in terms of classical thin-film elasticity theory. This should lead to an improved understanding of suspended graphene devices15,16, a controlled engineering of thermal stress in large-scale graphene electronics, and a systematic investigation of the effect of ripples on the electronic properties of graphene.

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Figure 1: Images, morphology and strain of suspended graphene sheets.
Figure 2: Dependence of ripple morphology on temperature.
Figure 3: Thermomechanical manipulation of the amplitude and orientation of the ripples.
Figure 4: TEC measurement of suspended graphene membranes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Bockrath and G. Xu for discussions, and B. Chim, D. Yan and Z. Zhao for assistance with SEM imaging. This research is supported in part by NSF/CAREER DMR/0748910, NSF/CBET 0756359, ONR N00014-09-1-0724 and ONR/DMEA H94003-09-2-0901. The trenches were fabricated at the UCSB nanofabrication facility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Wenzhong Bao, Feng Miao, Hang Zhang & Chun Ning Lau

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Zhen Chen, Wanyoung Jang & Chris Dames

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  1. Wenzhong Bao
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  2. Feng Miao
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  4. Hang Zhang
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  7. Chun Ning Lau
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Contributions

C.N.L. and W.B. conceived the experiments. C.N.L., C.D. and W.B. designed the experiments and interpreted the data. C.N.L., W.B., F.M. and H.Z. analysed the data. W.B., F.M., Z.C. and W.J. performed the experiments. Z.C. performed numerical simulations. C.N.L. and C.D. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chun Ning Lau.

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Bao, W., Miao, F., Chen, Z. et al. Controlled ripple texturing of suspended graphene and ultrathin graphite membranes. Nature Nanotech 4, 562–566 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.191

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