Production and Mechanical Characterization of Graphene Micro-Ribbons

Maria Giovanna Pastore Carbone,Christos Tsamis,Georgia Tsoukleri,Eleni Makarona,Costas Galiotis,Anastasios C Manikas

doi:10.3390/jcs3020042

Abstract

Patterning of graphene into micro- and nano-ribbons allows for tunability in emerging fields such as flexible electronic and optoelectronic devices, and is gaining interest for the production of more efficient reinforcement for composite materials. In this work we fabricate micro-ribbons from graphene synthesized via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) by combining ultraviolet (UV) photolithography and dry etching oxygen plasma treatments. We used Raman spectral imaging to confirm the effectiveness of the patterning procedure, which is suitable for large-area patterning of graphene on wafer-scale, and confirms that the quality of graphene remains unaltered. The produced micro-ribbons were finally transferred and embedded into a polymeric matrix and the mechanical response was investigated by in-situ mechanical investigation combining Raman spectroscopy and tensile/compressive tests.

Highlights

Graphene is a perfect 2D crystal of covalently bonded carbon atoms that is a promising candidate in a number of electrical, thermal, and mechanical applications, due to its exceptional physical properties [1]
Micro- and nano-patterning of graphene in specific shapes is fundamental in real device applications
Detailed Raman mapping has proved the effectiveness of the proposed method and has evidenced that the embedded micro-ribbons show a large distribution in the peak positions and FWHM of the G and 2D bands most probably due to structural faults such as wrinkles, folds, substrate surface defects, and molecular trapping induced by the fabrication and transferring process

Summary

Introduction

Graphene is a perfect 2D crystal of covalently bonded carbon atoms that is a promising candidate in a number of electrical, thermal, and mechanical applications, due to its exceptional physical properties [1]. Due to its outstanding transport properties, graphene is the best candidate for producing transparent electrodes and optoelectronic devices [2]. The CVD method yields reliable production of large-area and high-quality graphene films on a variety of metal substrates at relatively low cost. For practical applications in device manufacturing, several patterning techniques, such as optical lithography or electron beam lithography followed by lift off and plasma etching procedures, or femtosecond laser etching process, are required to tailor graphene sheets into the desired sizes and shapes [5,6]. One example is the production of graphene microand nano-ribbons as waveguiding strain sensors [7], chemiresistors [8], microsupercapacitors [9], and tunable tetrahertz metamaterials [10]

Methods

Results

Conclusion