Controlled Fragmentation of Single-Atom-Thick Polycrystalline Graphene

Ming Chen, Zhixun Wang, Xin Ge, Zhe Wang, Kazunori Fujisawa, Juan Xia, Qingsheng Zeng, Kaiwei Li, Ting Zhang, Qichong Zhang, Mengxiao Chen, Nan Zhang, Tingting Wu, Shaoyang Ma, Guoqiang Gu, Zexiang Shen, Linbo Liu, Zheng Liu, Mauricio Terrones, Lei Wei

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Controlling the fragmentation of atomically thin and brittle materials is of critical importance for both fundamental interest and technical purposes in fracture mechanics. However, the fragmentation of graphene is often random and uncontrollable because of the presence of grain boundaries and numerous defects. Here, by harnessing the strong localized strain during the necking process of thermoplastic polymers, we introduce a simple yet controllable method to tear apart a monolayer polycrystalline graphene (MPG) sheet into ordered graphene ribbons. More importantly, we show that the presence of active edges helps the graphene ribbons in exhibiting a field-effect characteristic pH response and improves the introduction of dopants. Furthermore, we demonstrate an optically transparent (∼98%), ultrathin (∼70 ± 15 nm), and skin-conformal pressure sensor for real-time tactile sensing. We believe that our results lead to further understanding of the fracture mechanics of graphene and offer unique advantages for practical applications, such as flexible electronics, chemical sensing, and biosensing.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)666-679
Number of pages14
JournalMatter
Volume2
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 4 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Materials Science

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