Tunable biaxial strain device for low-dimensional materials

Strain is attracting much interest as a mean to tune the properties of thin exfoliated two-dimensional materials and their heterostructures. Numerous devices to apply tunable uniaxial strain are proposed in the literature, but only few for biaxial strain, often with a trade-off between maximum strain and uniformity, reversibility, and device size. We present a compact device that allows for the controlled application of uniform in-plane biaxial strain, with maximum deformation and uniformity comparable to those found in much larger devices. Its performance and strain uniformity over the sample area are modeled using finite element analysis and demonstrated by measuring the response of exfoliated 2H–MoS₂ to strain by Raman spectroscopy.