Strain-induced semiconducting electron transport in graphene field effect devices

Strain engineering is a promising but unexplored method of inducing transport/band gaps in graphene. So far, a strain-induced band gap has been observed in scanning tunnel spectroscopy studies, while it has not been confirmed in actual field effect devices. This missing gap is presumably due to the relaxation of strain in device fabrication processes. Here, we develop a novel device fabrication method which makes graphene largely strained even in field effect devices. The electron transport in graphene with periodic uniaxial strain exhibits semiconducting behavior with a gap of 2 meV. We expect that optimization of the device structure extends the gap and improves device performance.