Nanomechanics of graphene

Yujie Wei; Ronggui Yang

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwy067

Nanomechanics of graphene

Natl Sci Rev. 2019 Mar;6(2):324-348. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwy067. Epub 2018 Jun 19.

Authors

Yujie Wei^{1

2}, Ronggui Yang³

Affiliations

¹ The State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics (LNM), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
² School of Engineering Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.

Abstract

The super-high strength of single-layer graphene has attracted great interest. In practice, defects resulting from thermodynamics or introduced by fabrication, naturally or artificially, play a pivotal role in the mechanical behaviors of graphene. More importantly, high strength is just one aspect of the magnificent mechanical properties of graphene: its atomic-thin geometry not only leads to ultra-low bending rigidity, but also brings in many other unique properties of graphene in terms of mechanics in contrast to other carbon allotropes, including fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. The out-of-plane deformation is of a 'soft' nature, which gives rise to rich morphology and is crucial for morphology control. In this review article, we aim to summarize current theoretical advances in describing the mechanics of defects in graphene and the theory to capture the out-of-plane deformation. The structure-mechanical property relationship in graphene, in terms of its elasticity, strength, bending and wrinkling, with or without the influence of imperfections, is presented.

Keywords: carbon honeycomb; graphene; pentagon–heptagon rings; strength; wrinkling.