Measuring and Manipulating the Adhesion of Graphene

We present a technique to measure the surface energies between two dimensional materials and substrates. As a specific example, we characterize the delamination of single-layer graphene from monolayers of pyrene tethered to glass in water. We maximize the graphene adhesion energy by varying the density of pyrene in the monolayer, enabling high-fidelity graphene-transfer protocols that can resist failure under sonication. Additionally, we find that the energies of graphene peeling and re-adhesion exhibit a dramatic rate-independent hysteresis, differing by a factor of 100. This work establishes a rational means to control the adhesion of 2D materials, and enables a systematic approach to engineer stimuli-responsive adhesives and mechanical technologies at the nanoscale.