Opening of slit-shaped pores from bending of graphene walls

Graphene has gained particular interest in many areas of research including adsorption. Recent studies have shown deformations in graphene resulting from the pressure of intercalants or edge bonds. In this talk, the opening of slit shaped pores from uniaxial bending of the graphene walls of the pore is examined. The energy functional associated with the deformation from equilibrium shape is minimized to obtain an optimal shape. The minimization is done analytically for a simple model and numerically for various graphene-graphene interaction potentials. The strain induced from bending has been shown to effect the hybridization of carbon bonds within the graphene sheet. The effect of any increase in the number of binding sites due to bending as well as hybridization effects on excess adsorption are studied by Molecular Dynamics simulations.