Electron heating and mechanical properties of graphene

Abstract

The heating of electrons in graphene by laser irradiation, and its effects on the lattice structure, are studied. Values for the temperature of the electron system in realistic situations are obtained. For sufficiently high electron temperatures, the occupancy of the states in the $\sigma$ band of graphene is modified. The strength of the carbon-carbon bonds changes, leading to the emergence of strains, and to buckling in suspended samples. While most applications of `strain engineering' in two dimensional materials focus on the effects of strains on electronic properties, the effect studied here leads to alterations of the structure induced by light. This novel optomechanical coupling can induce deflections in the order of $\sim 50$ nm in micron size samples.

References in corpus (9)

• Universal Dynamic Conductivity and Quantized Visible Opacity of Suspended Graphene
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Bending rigidity, sound propagation and ripples in flat graphene
• Inelastic scattering and cooling of photoexcited electrons through coupling with acoustic, optic and surface polar optic phonons in graphene