Confined, Oriented, and Electrically Anisotropic Graphene Wrinkles on Bacteria

Curvature-induced dipole moment and orbital rehybridization in graphene wrinkles modify its electrical properties and induces transport anisotropy. Current wrinkling processes are based on contraction of the entire substrate and do not produce confined or directed wrinkles. Here we show that selective desiccation of a bacterium under impermeable and flexible graphene via a flap-valve operation produces axially aligned graphene wrinkles of wavelength 32.4–34.3 nm, consistent with modified Föppl–von Kármán mechanics (confinement ∼0.7 × 4 μm²). Further, an electrophoretically oriented bacterial device with confined wrinkles aligned with van der Pauw electrodes was fabricated and exhibited an anisotropic transport barrier (ΔE = 1.69 meV). Theoretical models were developed to describe the wrinkle formation mechanism. The results obtained show bio-induced production of confined, well-oriented, and electrically anisotropic graphene wrinkles, which can be applied in electronics, bioelectromechanics, and strain patterning.