Mechanical and structural properties and devices articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    All materials subjected to mechanical deformation form low energy interfaces known as twin boundaries. Here, the authors investigate a variety of structural features that form upon bending atomically thin 2D-crystals, and predict distinct classes of post deformation microstructure based on their atomic arrangement, bend angle and flake thickness.

    • A. P. Rooney
    • , Z. Li
    •  & S. J. Haigh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Improved compressive elasticity was lately demonstrated for carbon aerogels but the problem of reversible stretchability remained a challenge. Here the authors use a hierarchical structure design and synergistic effects between carbon nanotubes and graphene to achieve high stretchability in carbon aerogels.

    • Fan Guo
    • , Yanqiu Jiang
    •  & Chao Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intrinsic limitations of nanoporous graphene limit its applications in water treatment. Here the authors produce post-treatment-free, low-cost graphene-based membranes from renewable biomass and demonstrate their high water permeance and antifouling properties using real seawater.

    • Dong Han Seo
    • , Shafique Pineda
    •  & Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strain is an effective tool to tune the optoelectronic properties of two-dimensional materials. Here, the authors demonstrate that second harmonic generation can be used to extract the full strain tensor of MoS2 and to spatially image its two-dimensional strain field.

    • Lukas Mennel
    • , Marco M. Furchi
    •  & Thomas Mueller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Membrane separation technologies show promise for CO2 capture, but typically suffer from a trade-off between permeance and selectivity. Here, the authors produce hollow fiber membranes coated with graphene oxide and a CO2-philic agent that can efficiently separate CO2 from flue gas under wet conditions.

    • Fanglei Zhou
    • , Huynh Ngoc Tien
    •  & Miao Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The reason why the surface adhesion of a graphene monolayer is much greater than that of graphene multilayers remains unclear. Here, the authors build a model to show interlayer sliding and fracture mode mixity cause the decrease in adhesion toughness of multilayer graphene.

    • Joseph D. Wood
    • , Christopher M. Harvey
    •  & Simon Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene holds promise as a protective coating; however, lattice defects may hinder its practical applicability. Here, the authors investigate the oxidation behavior of graphene-coated copper foils and unveil the interplay between structural defects and oxygen radicals from water molecules in ambient air.

    • Jinsung Kwak
    • , Yongsu Jo
    •  & Soon-Yong Kwon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanical resonances of atomically thin membranes show nonlinear responses at driving forces in the picoNewton range. Here, the authors develop a contactless method to extract the Young’s modulus of 2D materials from the nonlinear dynamic response of these nanomechanical resonators.

    • D. Davidovikj
    • , F. Alijani
    •  & P. G. Steeneken

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Producing graphene oxide membranes with narrow channels is desirable for small molecule separations, but methods to narrow the 2D spacing typically result in membrane damage. Here the authors exploit electrophoresis-deposition to prepare GO membranes that are reduced in situ, leading to narrow and uniform 2D channels.

    • Benyu Qi
    • , Xiaofan He
    •  & Yuhan Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene nanobubbles can act as enclosures for holding small volumes of substances. Here the authors find a correlation between bubble shape and the encapsulated material providing a potential method for determining the graphene bubble content by its deformation.

    • H. Ghorbanfekr-Kalashami
    • , K. S. Vasu
    •  & M. Neek-Amal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerographite is a highly porous and lightweight carbon material obtained from hollow tubular tetrapod building units. Here, the authors present a comprehensive investigation of tetrapod deformation mechanisms which are at the core of aerographite nanomechanical properties.

    • Raimonds Meija
    • , Stefano Signetti
    •  & Nicola M. Pugno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene, and other 2D materials, do not exist as strictly planar sheets but instead have topographic ripples on the sub-nanometre scale. Here, Latychevskaiaet al. present a method to non-invasively image ripples in 2D materials with a single-shot, wide-area, electron diffraction measurement.

    • Tatiana Latychevskaia
    • , Wei-Hao Hsu
    •  & Ing-Shouh Hwang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Micro- and nanostructures found in nature can be adopted to new uses and materials in engineered composites. Here authors demonstrate large enhancements in toughness and electrical conductivity in a ceramic upon addition of graphene at low (1 volume %) levels.

    • Olivier T. Picot
    • , Victoria G. Rocha
    •  & Eduardo Saiz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The wettability properties of graphene hold promise for the realisation of flow control devices. Here, the authors demonstrate that the degree of water penetration through a nickel mesh coated with graphene can be controlled electrically, enabling dynamic locomotion of water droplets.

    • Rassoul Tabassian
    • , Jung-Hwan Oh
    •  & Il-Kwon Oh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional materials show remarkable lubrication properties, yet chemical modifications may hinder such capabilities. Here, the authors show that when graphene is aligned on a Ge(111) substrate, ultra-low friction can be preserved even after graphene fluorination or oxidation.

    • Xiaohu Zheng
    • , Lei Gao
    •  & Xi Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The interface between vertically stacked 2D materials can host contaminants trapped within bubbles. Here, the authors show that such nano-bubbles can be used as a platform to explore the van der Waals pressure and elasticity in atomically thin films, in a previously inaccessible confined environment.

    • E. Khestanova
    • , F. Guinea
    •  & I. V. Grigorieva

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene is known to be a remarkably strong material, but it can often contain defects. Here, the authors use large-scale simulations and continuum modelling to show that the statistical variation in toughness and strength of polycrystalline graphene can be understood with 'weakest-link' statistics.

    • Ashivni Shekhawat
    •  & Robert O. Ritchie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Active control of optical fields at the nanoscale is difficult to achieve. Here, the authors fabricate an on-chip graphene NEMS suspended a few tens of nanometres above nitrogen vacancy centres and demonstrate electromechanical control of the photons emitted by electrostatic tuning of the graphene NEMS position.

    • Antoine Reserbat-Plantey
    • , Kevin G. Schädler
    •  & Frank H. L. Koppens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Free-standing graphene is inherently crumpled in the out-of-plane direction due to dynamic flexural phonons and static wrinkling. Here, the authors use optical interferometry as a delicate probe to investigate the consequences of this crumpling on the effective mechanical constants of graphene.

    • Ryan J.T. Nicholl
    • , Hiram J. Conley
    •  & Kirill I. Bolotin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene nanoelectromechanical systems enable the study of the interplay between electrical conductivity and mechanical properties. Here, the authors observe oscillations in the electromechanical response of bilayer graphene due to wrinkling, rather than the linear response seen in single layers.

    • Muhammed M. Benameur
    • , Fernando Gargiulo
    •  & Andras Kis

  • Article |

    Defects are known to affect the mechanical properties of materials. Here, the authors find that sp3-type defects in graphene have a negligible effect on stiffness and cause only a slight reduction in failure strength, while vacancy-type defects are much more degrading.

    • Ardavan Zandiatashbar
    • , Gwan-Hyoung Lee
    •  & Nikhil Koratkar

  • Article |

    The two-dimensional structure of graphene is known to impart high strength, but can be hard to synthesize without grain boundaries. Here, the authors find that strength increases with grain boundary mismatch, which results from low atomic-scale strain in the carbon–carbon bonds at the boundary.

    • Haider I. Rasool
    • , Colin Ophus
    •  & James K. Gimzewski

  • Article |

    The spectral position of Raman peaks is a useful diagnostic for determining the degree of strain and excess electronic charges present in graphene. This study demonstrates that these two contributions can be separated from each other and therefore be obtained at the same time.

    • Ji Eun Lee
    • , Gwanghyun Ahn
    •  & Sunmin Ryu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiral liquid crystals of two-dimensional colloids have not been extensively investigated. Xu and Gao show that graphene oxide can form chiral liquid crystals, and demonstrate that they can be spun into macroscopic fibres, and that subsequent chemical reduction provides graphene fibres with high conductivity.

    • Zhen Xu
    •  & Chao Gao

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