Conserved Bonding Sequences and Atomic Strain Fields of Graphene Grain Boundaries

ORAL

Abstract

Grain boundaries in polycrystalline materials have significant impact on their bulk mechanical properties. The detailed arrangement of atoms and bonding at the boundary dictate these properties and their differences from bulk single crystal behavior. In this work, we use aberration corrected high resolution transmission electron microscopy imaging to study the structure of graphene grain boundaries. By mapping the exact atomic positions of the carbon lattice, we visualize atomic scale strain organization in the material. We find that grain boundaries are comprised of conserved bonding sequences that can appear as periodic or aperiodic building blocks that give rise to similar strain behavior at the boundary. Using molecular dynamics fracture simulations, we predict that experimentally observed grain boundary structures will maintain strengths that are comparable to ideal theoretical grain boundaries.

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Authors

  • Haider Rasool

    UC Berkeley, Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems, University of California, Berkeley, UC Berkeley

  • Colin Ophus

    Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Ziang Zhang

    Rice University

  • Michael Crommie

    UC Berkeley physics/ LBNL MSD, UC Berkeley

  • Boris Yakobson

    Rice University, Houston, TX, Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Dept. of Chemistry, and Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering, and the Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science, Rice University

  • Alex Zettl

    Dept. of Physics, Univ of California - Berkeley; Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley;, Physics Department, COINS, UC Berkeley. Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute, UC Berkeley, Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, UC Berkeley, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at UC Berkeley, Department of Physics, University of California - Berkeley, UC Berkeley, Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley; Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory