Graphene Nanoribbon as an Elastic Damper

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that graphene nanoribbons exhibit two-phase stretching with domain formation and hysteresis, enabling their use as elastic dampers that convert mechanical energy into heat, with tunable properties via strain and temperature.

Contribution

It introduces the novel concept of using graphene nanoribbons as elastic dampers based on two-phase stretching and domain wall dynamics, supported by molecular dynamics simulations.

Findings

Graphene nanoribbons show two-phase stretching with domain formation.

Hysteresis behavior indicates energy dissipation during cyclic loading.

Mechanical and physical properties can be tuned by strain and heat.

Abstract

Heterostructures composed of dissimilar two-dimensional nanomaterials can have nontrivial physical and mechanical properties promising for many applications. Interestingly, in some cases, it is possible to create heterostructures composed of weakly and strongly stretched domains with the same chemical composition, as it has been demonstrated for some polymer chains, DNA, and intermetallic nanowires supporting this effect of two-phase stretching. These materials at relatively strong tension forces split into domains with smaller and larger tensile strain. Within this region, average strain increases at constant tensile force due to the growth of the domain with the larger strain in the expense of the domain with smaller strain. Here the two-phase stretching phenomenon is described for graphene nanoribbons with the help of molecular dynamics simulations. This unprecedented feature of graphene revealed in our study is related to the peculiarities of nucleation and motion of the domain walls separating the domains with different elastic strain. It turns out that the loading-unloading curves exhibit a hysteresis-like behavior due to the energy dissipation during the domain wall nucleation and motion. Here, we originally put forward the idea of implementing graphene nanoribbons as elastic dampers, efficiently converting mechanical strain energy into heat during cyclic loading-unloading through elastic extension where domains with larger and smaller strain coexist. Furthermore, in the regime of two-phase stretching, graphene nanoribbon is a heterostructure for which the fraction of domains with larger and smaller strain, and consequently its physical and mechanical properties, can be tuned in a controllable manner by applying elastic strain and/or heat.