Mechanics and multidisciplinary study for creating graphene-based van der Waals nano/microscale devices

Elastic resonators are the core elements for various types of nano/micro scale instruments and devices (e.g. gyroscopes, mass and acceleration sensors, AFM, SNOM). However due to the inevitable thermal dissipation in the elastic deforming modes their quality factor dramatically reduces as size shrinks, which is the bottleneck challenge for the application in nano devices. Van der Waals (vdW) oscillators recently invented (Zheng QS, Jiang Q, Phys Rev Lett, 88:045503, 2002) have two orders of magnitude higher in both motion speed and quality factor, that are the two major factors determining the performance of various nano/microscale devices, for example nano/micromechanical gyroscopes. Based on the vdW oscillators a completely new class of nano/micro devices is proposed. Furthermore the recently discovered self-retraction motion between two large scale sheared graphite flakes (Zheng QS, et al, Phys Rev Lett, 100:067205, 2008) has greatly promoted the graphene based vdW devices. By combining with the mature microfabrication technology for mass production, the graphene-based vdW sliding devices offer a great candidate for a new type of nano/micro devices, as well as high-density/high-speed hard diskettes. In this paper we report new experimental and theoretical advances in these fields, including self-retraction motion and dissipation mechanisms, challenges in surface physics and chemistry, novel stripe/kink structures arising from instabilities, transferring, self-assembling, and ultrahigh-speed record technology.