Nanowerk June 17, 2020
As the electronic and optical properties of 2D materials can be controlled by mechanical deformations of their crystal structure, strain engineering can be used to modify their electronic properties. Researchers in Spain have developed thermal strain actuators on top of polypropylene substrates to control the biaxial strain in atomically thin MoS2 layers. The actuators can reach a maximum biaxial strain of 0.64 % and reliably modulated at frequencies up to 8 Hz. The strain levels can be varied all the way from 0% to 0.6% with a negligible spatial drift. They demonstrated the operation of the actuators by applying modulated biaxial strain to single layer MoS2 to change its reflectance and refractive index…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Artistic representation of the microheater thermal actuator used to apply biaxial strain to a MoS2 flake. Credit: Image: Enrique Sahagún, SCIXEL