Nanoscale frictional behavior of graphene on SiO 2 and Ni(111) substrates

Friction characteristics of graphene deposited on different substrates have been studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). In particular, we compared mechanically exfoliated graphene transferred over Si/SiO 2 with respect to monolayer (ML) graphene grown in our laboratory by low temperature chemical vapor deposition on Ni(111) single crystal. Friction force measurements by AFM have been carried out as function of load under different environment conditions, namely vacuum (10 −5 Torr), nitrogen and air. The typical decrease of friction force with increasing number of layers has been observed on graphene over Si/SiO 2 in all environment including vacuum. Continuum mechanical approximation has been used to analyze the friction versus load curves of ML graphene on Ni(111). Analysis shows that Derjaguin–Mueller–Toporov model is in good agreement with our experimental data indicating that overall behavior of the interface graphene–Ni(111) is relatively rig...

G Paolicelli, M Tripathi, V Corradini, A Candini and S Valeri

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