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With the rise of two-dimensional (2D) materials, their excellent optical, electronic, and thermal properties different from bulk materials make them increasingly widely studied and commercialized. 2D materials’ exceptional physical properties and unique structures make them an ideal candidate for next-generation flexible and wearable devices. In this work, we created a manufacturing method to successfully transfer monolayer, bilayer, and trilayer graphene onto the flexible substrate, with trenches of micron size to suspend graphene. Thermal transport measurements have been characterized to prove the suspended region. The achievement of manufacturing 2D materials in suspended condition will allow us to study their intrinsic physical properties at a mechanical strain, as well as contribute to novel flexible and wearable electronic devices and sensors.
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Thermal transport in graphene under large mechanical strains
Flexible electronic devices with skin-like properties are hailed as revolutionary for the development of next-generation electronic devices, such as electric-skin and humanoid robotics. Graphene is intrinsically flexible due to its structural thinness in nature and are considered next-generation materials for wearable electronics. These devices usually experience a large mechanical deformation in use so as to achieve intimate conformal contact with human skin and to coordinate complex human motions, while heat dissipation has been a major limitation when the device is under a large mechanical strain. Unlike the small deformation (<1%) induced by intrinsic material factors such as lattice mismatch between material components in devices, a large mechanical deformation (>1%) by an external loading condition could lead to apparent changes to global geometric shapes and significantly impact thermal transport. In this study, we investigated the thermal conductivities of graphene under several large mechanical strains: 2.9%, 4.3%, and 6.1%. We used a refined opto-thermal Raman technique to characterize the thermal transport properties and discovered the thermal conductivities to be 2092 ± 502, 972 ± 87, 348 ± 52, and 97 ± 13 W/(m K) for the relaxed state, 2.9%, 4.3%, and 6.1% tensile strain, respectively. Our results showed a significant decreasing trend in thermal conductivities with an increasing mechanical strain. The findings in this study reveal new thermal transport mechanisms in 2D materials and shed light on building novel flexible nanoelectronic devices with enhanced thermal management.
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- PAR ID:
- 10593820
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Institute of Physics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Applied Physics
- Volume:
- 136
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 0021-8979
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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