Bend, buckle, and fold: mechanical engineering with nanomembranes

Research on nanomembranes and graphene sheets represents the "third wave" of work on nanomaterials, following earlier studies of nanoparticles/fullerenes and, somewhat later, nanowires/ nanotubes. Inorganic semiconductor nanomembranes are particularly appealing due to their materials diversity, the ease with which they can be grown with high quality over large areas, and the ability to exploit them in unique, high-performance electronic and optoelectronic systems. The mechanics of such nanomembranes and the coupling of strain to their electronic properties are topics of considerable current interest. A new paper by the Lagally group in this issue combines single-crystalline silicon nanomembranes with chemical vapor deposition techniques to form "mechano-electronic" superlattices whose properties could lead to unusual classes of electronic devices.