Definitive engineering strength and fracture toughness of graphene through on-chip nanomechanics.

Fail-safe design of devices requires robust integrity assessment procedures which are still absent for 2D materials, hence affecting transfer to applications. Here, a combined on-chip tension and cracking method, and associated data reduction scheme have been developed to determine the fracture toughness and strength of monolayer-monodomain-freestanding graphene. Myriads of specimens are generated providing statistical data.