Bending Rules for Nano-Kirigami

TL;DR

This paper investigates the shapes of nanoscale kirigami in graphene sheets by combining atomistic simulations and elastic theory, revealing how bending rigidity influences the resulting surface morphologies.

Contribution

It introduces a new set of microscopic kirigami rules that account for bending and stretching energy competition at the nanoscale.

Findings

Surface shapes are smoothly modulated due to bending rigidity.

The new rules accurately predict shape and interactions.

Contrast with macroscopic kirigami ridge-and-plateau motifs.

Abstract

We combine large-scale atomistic modelling with continuum elastic theory to study the shapes of graphene sheets embedding nanoscale kirigami. Lattice segments are selectively removed from a flat graphene sheet and the structure is allowed to close and reconstruct by relaxing in the third dimension. The surface relaxation is limited by a nonzero bending modulus which produces a smoothly modulated landscape instead of the ridge-and-plateau motif found in macroscopic lattice kirigami. The resulting surface shapes and their interactions are well described by a new set of microscopic kirigami rules that resolve the competition between the bending and stretching energies.