Kirigami Engineering of Suspended Graphene Transducers

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 22; no. 13; pp. 5301 - 5306
• Main Authors: Dai, Chunhui, Rho, Yoonsoo, Pham, Khanh, McCormick, Brady, Blankenship, Brian W., Zhao, Wenyu, Zhang, Zuocheng, Gilbert, S. Matt, Crommie, Michael F., Wang, Feng, Grigoropoulos, Costas P., Zettl, Alex
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 13-07-2022
• Subjects: Letter; graphene NEMS; acoustic transducer; graphene kirigami
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01256

The low mass density and high mechanical strength of graphene make it an attractive candidate for suspended-membrane energy transducers. Typically, the membrane size dictates the operational frequency and bandwidth. However, in many cases it would be desirable to both lower the resonance frequency and increase the bandwidth, while maintaining overall membrane size. We employ focused ion beam milling or laser ablation to create kirigami-like modification of suspended pure-graphene membranes ranging in size from microns to millimeters. Kirigami engineering successfully reduces the resonant frequency, increases the displacement amplitude, and broadens the effective bandwidth of the transducer. Our results present a promising route to miniaturized wide-band energy transducers with enhanced operational parameter range and efficiency.