Peeling of multilayer graphene generates complex interlayer sliding patterns

Abstract

Peeling, shearing, and sliding are important mechanical phenomena in van der Waals solids. However, theoretically they have been studied mostly using minimal periodic cells and in the context of accurate quantum simulations. Here, we investigate the peeling of large-scale multilayer graphene stacks with varying thicknesses, stackings, and peeling directions by using classical molecular dynamics simulations with a registry-dependent interlayer potential. Simulations show that, while at large scale the peeling proceeds smoothly, at small scale the registry shifts and sliding patterns of the layers are unexpectedly intricate and depend both on the initial stacking and on the peeling direction. These observations indicate that peeling and concomitant kink formations may well transform stacking order and thereby profoundly influence the electronic structures of such multilayer solids.

7 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• The electronic properties of graphene
• Frictional figures of merit for single layered nanostructures
• Superlubric to stick-slip sliding of incommensurate graphene flakes on graphite

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Anomalous twin boundaries in 2D materials
• Dislocations in stacking and commensurate-incommensurate phase transition in bilayer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride
• Floquet Weyl fermions in circularly-polarised-light-irradiated three-dimensional stacked graphene systems
• Optically Forged Diffraction-Unlimited Ripples in Graphene
• Limits of stability in supported graphene nanoribbons subject to bending