Quantitative Study of AFM-based Nanopatterning of Graphene Nanoplate

This paper presents a quantitative study of the patterning of graphene nanoplates using Atomic force microscopy (AFM) based nanolithography. Nanoscale trenches with controllable width and depth are created on graphene nanoplates by employing force-controlled nanomechanical cutting and voltage-controlled local anodic oxidation (LAO) technique, respectively. During the cutting process, the effect of the applied cutting force and LAO voltage on the dimension of trenches is quantitatively investigated. By applying the well-defined cutting parameters, graphene nanoribbons with desirable width can be fabricated effectively. In addition, the electric characteristic of the graphene nanoplate is measured, which shows that the electronic properties vary with the width of the graphene nanoribbons. This study provides an applicable way to realize high efficient, reliable, and accurate nanopatterning of graphene nanoplate.