Determination of Cleavage Energy and Efficient Nanostructuring of Layered Materials by Atomic Force Microscopy

A method is presented to use atomic force microscopy to measure the cleavage energy of van der Waals materials and similar quasi-two-dimensional materials. The cleavage energy of graphite is measured to be 0.36 J/m2, in good agreement with literature data. The same method yields a cleavage energy of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nano letters 2022-05, Vol.22 (9), p.3550-3556
Main Authors: Rasche, Bertold, Brunner, Julius, Schramm, Tim, Ghimire, Madhav Prasad, Nitzsche, Ulrike, Büchner, Bernd, Giraud, Romain, Richter, Manuel, Dufouleur, Joseph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed Matter
Materials Science
Physics
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Summary:A method is presented to use atomic force microscopy to measure the cleavage energy of van der Waals materials and similar quasi-two-dimensional materials. The cleavage energy of graphite is measured to be 0.36 J/m2, in good agreement with literature data. The same method yields a cleavage energy of 0.6 J/m2 for MoS2 as a representative of the dichalcogenides. In the case of the weak topological insulator Bi14Rh3I9 no cleavage energy is obtained, although cleavage is successful with an adapted approach. The cleavage energies of these materials are evaluated by means of density-functional calculations and literature data. This further validates the presented method and sets an upper limit of about 0.7 J/m2 to the cleavage energy that can be measured by the present setup. In addition, this method can be used as a tool for manipulating exfoliated flakes, prior to or after contacting, which may open a new route for the fabrication of nanostructures.
ISSN:1530-6984
1530-6992
DOI:10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04868