Periodic ripples in suspended graphene

TL;DR

This paper investigates the physical mechanisms behind the formation of periodic ripples in suspended graphene, revealing scaling laws and boundary effects through atomistic simulations, which are crucial for electronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces atomistic simulation insights into how edge compression and boundary displacement cause ripples in graphene, establishing key scaling laws.

Findings

Ripple wavelength and amplitude follow 1/4-power scaling laws with edge compression.

Parallel boundary displacement induces ripples with amplitude proportional to the 1/4 power of displacement.

Structural instability under edge compression is the main cause of rippling.

Abstract

We study the mechanism of wrinkling of suspended graphene, by means of atomistic simulations. We argue that the structural instability under edge compression is the essential physical reason for the formation of periodic ripples in graphene. The ripple wavelength and out-of-plane amplitude are found to obey 1/4-power scaling laws with respect to edge compression. Our results also show that parallel displacement of the clamped boundaries can induce periodic ripples, with oscillation amplitude roughly proportional to the 1/4 power of edge displacement. The results are fundamental to graphene's applications in electronics.