Fig. 1: AFM-based in-plane mechanical cleavage of graphene.

a Schematic of the AFM cleavage lithography process. b Lattice resolution on graphene acquired in contact mode, (FFT filtered for clarity), revealing the main crystallographic directions. Scale bar: 2 nm. c Fourier transform of the original lattice resolution image. Scale bar: 2 nm−1. d Linear AFM indentations in graphene along zigzag direction with gradually increasing depth. Scale bar: 500 nm. e Depth profiles of the patterned lines from panel d, revealing the border between stretching and cutting of the graphene sheet.