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arXiv · 1501.06437

Mechanical manipulation and exfoliation of boron nitride flakes by micro-plowing with an AFM tip

Joshua O. Island·Gary A. Steele·Herre S. J. can der Zant·Andres Castellanos-Gomez
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Abstract

We demonstrate a simple method to manipulate and exfoliate thick hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) flakes using an atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever and tip mounted to a micromanipulator stage. Thick flakes of tens to hundreds of nanometers can be thinned down to large area, few-layer and monolayer flakes. We characterize the resulting thinned-down flakes using AFM and Raman spectroscopy. This technique is extendable to other two dimensional, van der Waals materials.

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Joshua O. Island, Gary A. Steele, Herre S. J. can der Zant, Andres Castellanos-Gomez. 2015-01-26. Mechanical manipulation and exfoliation of boron nitride flakes by micro-plowing with an AFM tip. https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.06437

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