The response of mechanical and electronic properties of graphane to the elastic strain

TL;DR

This study uses first-principles calculations to investigate how elastic strain affects the mechanical and electronic properties of graphane, revealing its lower stiffness compared to graphene and strain-tunable band gap.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze elastic properties of monolayer graphane and explores the effects of defects and temperature on its mechanical and electronic behavior.

Findings

Graphane has smaller in-plane stiffness and Poisson's ratio than graphene.

Vacancy defects and high temperature reduce the yielding strain of graphane.

Strain can significantly modify the band gap of graphane within the elastic range.

Abstract

Based on first-principles calculations, we resent a method to reveal the elastic properties of recently synthesized monolayer hydrocarbon, graphane. The in-plane stiffness and Poisson's ratio values are found to be smaller than those of graphene, and its yielding strain decreases in the presence of various vacancy defects and also at high ambient temperature. We also found that the band gap can be strongly modified by applied strain in the elastic range.