Tailoring the thermal expansion of graphene via controlled defect creation

Abstract

Contrary to most materials, graphene exhibits a negative thermal expansion coefficient (TEC), i.e it contracts when heated. This contraction is due to the thermal excitation of low energy out-of-plane vibration modes. These flexural modes have been reported to govern the electronic transport and the mechanical response of suspended graphene. In this work, we systematically investigate the influence of defects in the TEC of suspended graphene membranes. Controlled introduction of low densities of mono-vacancies reduces the graphene TEC, up to one order of magnitude for a defect density of $5\times 10^{12}$~cm${}^{-2}$ . Our molecular dynamics simulations reproduce the observed trend and show that TEC reduction is due to the suppression of out-of-plane fluctuations caused by the strain fields created by mono-vacancies in their surrounding areas. These results highlight the key role of defects in the properties of "real-life" graphene, and pave the way for future proposals of electronic and mechanical defect engineering.

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Strain dependent elastic modulus of graphene
• Defect-Dependent Corrugation in Graphene
• The effect of rippling on the mechanical properties of graphene
• Bending mode and thermal expansion of graphene
• Improved graphene blisters by ultrahigh pressure sealing
• Defects induce phase transition from dynamic to static rippling in graphene
• Tuning of temperature dependence of resonance frequency shift of atomically thin mechanical resonators with van der Waals heterojunction
• Misfit strain effect on the thermal expansion coefficient of graphene/MoS${}_2$ van der Waals heterostructures
• Study of Thermal Expansion Coefficients of 2D Materials via Raman Micro-spectroscopy: Revisited