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Adhesion Mechanics between Nanoscale Silicon Oxide Tips and Few-Layer Graphene

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Abstract

Finite element method (FEM) simulations of the adhesive contact between a nanoscale tip and a silicon oxide substrate covered with graphene were performed, modelling experimental atomic force microscopy pull-off measurements. Simulations showed a slight increase in the pull-off force as layer number increased. This small enhancement was within reported experimental error, agreeing with the experimental findings of layer-independent adhesion forces. Pull-off forces did not vary with the elastic strain in the system for a given number of layers, but were influenced by the greater adhesive stresses for tip–graphene interaction compared with tip–substrate interactions. FEM simulations were also performed on suspended graphene and showed that the adhesive forces increased slightly beyond one layer of graphene, but then varied little from two to four layers of graphene. The results indicate that while there is some local delamination of the graphene sheets from the substrate, the adhesive stresses between the graphene layers in multilayer graphene effectively prevent out-of-plane mechanical deformation of the graphene layers that could result from tip–graphene interactions. Thus, the increased pull-off forces observed beyond one monolayer results from a change in the amount of material between the tip and substrate, or in this case the number of graphene layers, thus increasing the van der Waals force between tip and graphene.

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Acknowledgements

P.G. and P.E. would like to acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada through the Discovery Grant program, funding from the University of Calgary Seed Grant program and University of Calgary Startup Funding. The authors would also like to acknowledge fruitful conversations with Dr. Salvatore Federico at the University of Calgary. Q.L. would like to thank the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11422218, 11432008) and the Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Tribology of Tsinghua University (SKLT2015D01). R.W.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, Grant Number CMMI-1401164.

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Author notes

  1. Xin-Zhou Liu

    Present address: Lam Research Corporation, 4650 Cushing Parkway, Fremont, CA, 94538, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, 40 Research Place NW, Calgary, AB, T2L 1Y6, Canada

    Peng Gong & Philip Egberts

  2. AML, CNMM, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Qunyang Li

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Xin-Zhou Liu & Robert W. Carpick

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  1. Peng Gong
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  5. Philip Egberts
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Correspondence to Philip Egberts.

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Appendix

Appendix

Additional pull-off simulations have been conducted with a 7.5 nm radius on both supported and suspended graphene. The results from these additional simulations show the same trend in terms of an increasing pull-off force with number of graphene layers, as well as a slight increase in the observed work of adhesion. These results are graphically depicted in Fig. 10 as well as Tables 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Fig. 10
figure 10

Normal force versus tip–sample separation curves for pull-off simulations of a 7.5-nm tip containing 1–4 layers of silicon oxide supported graphene in a configuration 1 and b configuration 2, and of suspended graphene in c configuration 1 and d configuration 2. The insets highlight the variance in the minima of the normal force versus tip–sample separation curves. The color scheme is as follows: colors denote the number of graphene layers. Black, red, blue, and green represent 4-layer (4L), 3-layer (3L), 2-layer (2L), and 1-layer (1L), respectively (Color figure online)

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Table 6 Pull-off forces, work of adhesion, and tip–graphene separation at \(F_{PO}\) for simulations conducted in configuration 1 and with 1 to 4 layers of graphene in the contact with a 7.5-nm-radius tip
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Table 7 Pull-off forces, work of adhesion, and tip–graphene separation at \(F_{PO}\) for simulations conducted in configuration 2 and with 1 to 4 layers of graphene in the contact with a 7.5-nm-radius tip
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Table 8 Pull-off forces, work of adhesion, and tip–graphene separation at \(F_{PO}\) for simulations conducted in configuration 1 and with 1–4 layers of suspended graphene in the contact with a 7.5-nm-radius tip
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Table 9 Pull-off forces, work of adhesion, and tip–graphene separation at \(F_{PO}\) for simulations conducted in configuration 2 and with 1 to 4 layers of suspended graphene in the contact with a 7.5-nm-radius tip
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Gong, P., Li, Q., Liu, XZ. et al. Adhesion Mechanics between Nanoscale Silicon Oxide Tips and Few-Layer Graphene. Tribol Lett 65, 61 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-017-0837-5

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