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arXiv · 2606.30472

Mechanical Manipulation of Graphene Auto-Kirigami with an AFM tip

Pierce C. Sinnott·Majid Fazeli Jadidi·Graham L. W. Cross
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Abstract

Graphene auto-kirigami describes the thermodynamically self-driven tearing, sliding and folding of graphene sheets to form micrometre-scale, folded ribbons. However, this process typically requires specialised multi-axial nanoindentation systems or highly laborious AFM-based scratching methods. We here introduce a novel, scalable, wholly AFM-based method to nucleate high yields of ribbons in comparable timeframes to previous multi-axial indentation methods, by AFM-based indentation and "hard tapping", whereby high setpoint AFM imaging can nucleate, manipulate and dynamically image the auto-kirigami ribbons. This can be performed with any conventional AFM, enabling extensional growth, rotation and reversal of ribbons towards potential applications as NEMS devices.

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Pierce C. Sinnott, Majid Fazeli Jadidi, Graham L. W. Cross. 2026-06-29. Mechanical Manipulation of Graphene Auto-Kirigami with an AFM tip. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.30472

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