Raman spectroscopy of highly pressurized graphene membranes

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 108; no. 22
• Main Authors: Shin, Yuyoung, Lozada-Hidalgo, Marcelo, Sambricio, Jose L., Grigorieva, Irina V., Geim, Andre K., Casiraghi, Cinzia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 30.05.2016
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4952972

Raman spectroscopy is an ideal tool for the characterization of strained graphene. Biaxial strain, in particular, allows for more reliable calculation of the Grüneisen parameters than uniaxial strain. However, the application of biaxial strain is rather difficult to achieve experimentally, so all previous studies reported on graphene subjected to relatively small biaxial strains (0.1%–1%), in contrast to uniaxial strain above 10%. Here, we report a simple fabrication technique to produce pressurized and stable graphene membranes that can support differential pressures up to 14 bar, corresponding to a reversible strain up to ∼2%. We find that the Grüneisen parameters remain constant even for the largest strains achieved, in agreement with the theoretical predictions. However, for strains above 1%, a distinctive broadening of both the G and 2D peaks was observed for biaxial strain. We attribute this to the nanoscale variations of strain in the membrane within an area comparable with the laser spot size.