2019/01/25 by Filippo Cellini, Cellini, Filippo, Francesco Lavini +7 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #FOS: Physical sciences #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Graphene research and applications #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1901.09071
openalex publication_date 2019/01/25 · openalex created_date 2022/10/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The study of the nanomechanics of graphene - and other 2D materials - has\nled to the discovery of exciting new properties in 2D crystals, such as their\nremarkable in-plane stiffness and out of plane flexibility, as well as their\nunique frictional and wear properties at the nanoscale. Recently, nanomechanics\nof graphene has generated renovated interest for new findings on the\npressure-induced chemical transformation of a few-layer thick epitaxial\ngraphene into a new ultra-hard carbon phase, named diamene. In this work, by\nmeans of a machine learning technique, we provide a fast and efficient tool for\nidentification of graphene domains (areas with a defined number of layers) in\nepitaxial and exfoliated films, by combining data from Atomic Force Microscopy\n(AFM) topography and friction force microscopy (FFM). Through the analysis of\nthe number of graphene layers and detailed rA-indentation experiments, we\ndemonstrate that the formation of ultra-stiff diamene is exclusively found in\n1-layer plus buffer layer epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide (SiC) and that\nan ultra-stiff phase is not observed in neither thicker epitaxial graphene\n(2-layer or more) nor exfoliated graphene films of any thickness on silicon\noxide (SiO2).\n