We report the observation of a novel phenomenon, the self-retracting motion of graphite, in which tiny flakes of graphite, after being displaced to various suspended positions from islands of highly orientated pyrolytic graphite, retract back onto the islands under no external influences. Reports of this phenomenon have not been found in the literature for single crystals of any kind. Models that include the van der Waals force, electrostatic force, and shear strengths were considered to explain the observed phenomenon. These findings may conduce to create nanoelectromechanical systems with a wide range of mechanical frequency from megahertz to gigahertz.

Nano-sized graphite patterns were obtained by tailoring graphite sheets using different methods. With focused ion beam etching we are able to produce grooves of minimum width ～ 30 nm. However, at the edges of the grooves there deposit with Ga-C compound which prevents the easy cleavage of the graphite sheets. With electron beam lithography and reactive ion etching techniques we are able to produce graphite patterns of sizes down to 50 nm. Three different types of masks are tested, and the results are compared and discussed.