Interlayer binding energy of graphite: A mesoscopic determination from deformation

Despite the interlayer binding energy being one of the most important material properties of graphite, direct experimental determination of this property is yet to be reported. In this paper, we present an experimental method to directly measure the interlayer binding energy of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite ( HOPG). The obtained value of the binding energy is 0.19 (+/- 0.01) J/m(2), which can serve as a benchmark for other theoretical and experimental works related to graphite/graphene systems.