Abstract

Graphene was first isolated six years ago, and has since generated enormous interest due to its potential for electronics applications. It is intrinsically conducting, with no band gap, but may be patterned to confine conduction; room temperature transistor behaviour requires graphene ribbons only a few nanometres wide, at or beyond the limits of conventional lithography and etching processes. A potential alternative uses the sharp point of a scanning probe microscope to tailor the graphene flake. In this work a charged AFM tip has been used to cut patterns on few and single layer graphene with feature sizes as small as 5 nm. In addition to these results, this talk will present analysis used to derive a molecular mechanism for the removal of carbon, discussing in particular the role of water and an unstable solid carbon oxide. Thermal annealing also revealed the presence of water beneath flakes, which influences their transport behaviour.