5,199 research outputs found
Mechanics of thermally fluctuating membranes
Besides having unique electronic properties, graphene is claimed to be the
strongest material in nature. In the press release of the Nobel committee it is
claimed that a hammock made of a squared meter of one-atom thick graphene could
sustain the wight of a 4 kg cat. More practically important are applications of
graphene like scaffolds and sensors which are crucially dependent on the
mechanical strength. Meter-sized graphene is even being considered for the
lightsails in the starshot project to reach the star alpha centaury. The
predicted strength of graphene is based on its very large Young modulus which
is, per atomic layer, much larger than that of steel. This reasoning however
would apply to conventional thin plates but does not take into account the
peculiar properties of graphene as a thermally fluctuating crystalline
membrane. It was shown recently both experimentally and theoretically that
thermal fluctuations lead to a dramatic reduction of the Young modulus and
increase of the bending rigidity for micron-sized graphene samples in
comparison with atomic scale values. This makes the use of the standard
F\"oppl-von Karman elasticity (FvK) theory for thin plates not directly
applicable to graphene and other single atomic layer membranes. This fact is
important because the current interpretation of experimental results is based
on the FvK theory. In particular, we show that the FvK-derived Schwerin
equation, routinely used to derive the Young modulus from indentation
experiments has to be essentially modified for graphene at room temperature and
for micron sized samples. Based on scaling analysis and atomistic simulation we
investigate the mechanics of graphene under transverse load up to breaking. We
determine the limits of applicability of the FvK theory and provide
quantitative estimates for the different regimes.Comment: to appear in npj 2D Materials and Application
Scaling behavior and strain dependence of in-plane elastic properties of graphene
We show by atomistic simulations that, in the thermodynamic limit, the
in-plane elastic moduli of graphene at finite temperature vanish with system
size as a power law with , in
agreement with the membrane theory. Our simulations clearly reveal the size and
strain dependence of graphene's elastic moduli, allowing comparison to
experimental data. Although the recently measured difference of a factor 2
between the asymptotic value of the Young modulus for tensilely strained
systems and the value from {\it ab initio} calculations remains unsolved, our
results do explain the experimentally observed increase of more than a factor 2
for a tensile strain of only a few permille. We also discuss the scaling of the
Poisson ratio, for which our simulations disagree with the predictions of the
self-consistent screening approximation.Comment: 5 figure
Melting temperature of graphene
We present an approach to the melting of graphene based on nucleation theory
for a first order phase transition from the 2D solid to the 3D liquid via an
intermediate quasi-2D liquid.
The applicability of nucleation theory, supported by the results of
systematic atomistic Monte Carlo simulations, provides an intrinsic definition
of the melting temperature of graphene, , and allows us to determine it.
We find K, about 250 K higher than that of graphite using the
same interatomic interaction model. The found melting temperature is shown to
be in good agreement with the asymptotic results of melting simulations for
finite disks and ribbons of graphene. Our results strongly suggest that
graphene is the most refractory of all known materials
Spiral graphone and one sided fluorographene nano-ribbons
The instability of a free-standing one sided hydrogenated/fluorinated
graphene nano-ribbon, i.e. graphone/fluorographene, is studied using ab-initio,
semiempirical and large scale molecular dynamics simulations. Free standing
semi-infinite arm-chair like hydrogenated/fluorinated graphene (AC-GO/AC-GF)
and boat like hydrogenated/fluorinated graphene (B-GO/B-GF) (nano-ribbons which
are periodic along the zig-zag direction) are unstable and spontaneously
transform into spiral structures. We find that rolled, spiral B-GO and B-GF are
energetically more favorable than spiral AC-GO and AC-GF which is opposite to
the double sided flat hydrogenated/fluorinated graphene, i.e.
graphane/fluorographene. We found that the packed, spiral structures exhibit
unexpected localized HOMO-LUMO at the edges with increasing energy gap during
rolling. These rolled hydrocarbon structures are stable beyond room temperature
up to at least =1000\,K.Comment: Phys. Rev. B 87, 075448 (2013
Quantum capacitor with discrete charge-anticharge: spectrum and forces
The quantum capacitor with discrete charge is modeled by a Hamiltonian
containing an inductive intrinsic term (tunnel effect between plates). The
spectrum is obtained using a double Hilbert space. Fluctuations in the
charge-anticharge pairs (zero total charge) give rise to an elementary
attraction which is compared to the Casimir force. In this case, the
field-fluctuations force could be also interpreted as charge-fluctuations
force
Atomistic simulations of structural and thermodynamic properties of bilayer graphene
We study the structural and thermodynamic properties of bilayer graphene, a
prototype two-layer membrane, by means of Monte Carlo simulations based on the
empirical bond order potential LCBOPII. We present the temperature dependence
of lattice parameter, bending rigidity and high temperature heat capacity as
well as the correlation function of out-of-plane atomic displacements. The
thermal expansion coefficient changes sign from negative to positive above
K, which is lower than previously found for single layer graphene
and close to the experimental value of bulk graphite. The bending rigidity is
twice as large than for single layer graphene, making the out-of-plane
fluctuations smaller. The crossover from correlated to uncorrelated
out-of-plane fluctuations of the two carbon planes occurs for wavevectors
shorter than nmComment: 6 pages, 7 figures
Formation of van der Waals molecules in buffer gas cooled magnetic traps
We show that a large class of helium-containing cold polar molecules form
readily in a cryogenic buffer gas, achieving densities as high as 10^12 cm^-3.
We explore the spin relaxation of these molecules in buffer gas loaded magnetic
traps, and identify a loss mechanism based on Landau-Zener transitions arising
from the anisotropic hyperfine interaction. Our results show that the recently
observed strong T^6 thermal dependence of spin change in buffer gas trapped
silver (Ag) is accounted for by the formation and spin change of AgHe, thus
providing evidence for molecular formation in a buffer gas trap.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Energy loss mechanism for suspended micro- and nanoresonators due to the Casimir force
A so far not considered energy loss mechanism in suspended micro- and
nanoresonators due to noncontact acoustical energy loss is investigated
theoretically. The mechanism consists on the conversion of the mechanical
energy from the vibratory motion of the resonator into acoustic waves on large
nearby structures, such as the substrate, due to the coupling between the
resonator and those structures resulting from the Casimir force acting over the
separation gaps. Analytical expressions for the resulting quality factor Q for
cantilever and bridge micro- and nanoresonators in close proximity to an
underlying substrate are derived and the relevance of the mechanism is
investigated, demonstrating its importance when nanometric gaps are involved
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