Applying a large strain into graphene using thermal shrinkage of SU-8 resist

We investigated the use of the thermal shrinkage of SU-8 resist for applying strain into graphene grown by the chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) method. We demonstrate that the shrinkage of resist deposited on top of graphene on a substrate induces a local tensile strain within a distance of 1-2 μm from the edge of the resist. The thermal shrinkage of SU-8 allows us to design the local strain in graphene on substrates. We also show that this method induces a large tensile strain in graphene suspended between two bars of SU-8. We expect that a much larger strain can be induced by suppressing the defects of the CVD-grown graphene.