Fabrication of comb-drive actuators for straining nanostructured suspended graphene. (11th July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Goldsche, M; Verbiest, G J; Khodkov, T; Sonntag, J; Driesch, N von den; Buca, D; Stampfer, C
• Is Part Of: Nanotechnology. Volume 29:Number 37(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-07-11
• Subjects: graphene -- comb-drive actuators -- nanostructuring -- low-temperature compatible -- strain control -- charge carrier transport; Nanotechnology -- Periodicals; Nanotechnology -- Periodicals; Nanotechnology; Publications périodiques; Nanotechnologies; Periodicals; 620.5
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/aacdec
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0957-4484

Abstract

Abstract: We report on the fabrication and characterization of an optimized comb-drive actuator design for strain-dependent transport measurements on suspended graphene. We fabricate devices from highly p-doped silicon using deep reactive ion etching with a chromium mask. Crucially, we implement a gold layer to reduce the device resistance from ≈51.6 kΩ to ≈236 Ω at room temperature in order to allow for strain-dependent transport measurements. The graphene is integrated by mechanically transferring it directly onto the actuator using a polymethylmethacrylate membrane. Importantly, the integrated graphene can be nanostructured afterwards to optimize device functionality. The minimum feature size of the structured suspended graphene is 30 nm, which allows for interesting device concepts such as mechanically-tunable nanoconstrictions. Finally, we characterize the fabricated devices by measuring the Raman spectrum as well as the a mechanical resonance frequency of an integrated graphene sheet for different strain values