@article{3f3a3acc688342759b4c97f9649f6c40,
title = "Strain Modulation of Graphene by Nanoscale Substrate Curvatures: A Molecular View",
abstract = "Spatially nonuniform strain is important for engineering the pseudomagnetic field and band structure of graphene. Despite the wide interest in strain engineering, there is still a lack of control on device-compatible strain patterns due to the limited understanding of the structure-strain relationship. Here, we study the effect of substrate corrugation and curvature on the strain profiles of graphene via combined experimental and theoretical studies of a model system: graphene on closely packed SiO2 nanospheres with different diameters (20-200 nm). Experimentally, via quantitative Raman analysis, we observe partial adhesion and wrinkle features and find that smaller nanospheres induce larger tensile strain in graphene; theoretically, molecular dynamics simulations confirm the same microscopic structure and size dependence of strain and reveal that a larger strain is caused by a stronger, inhomogeneous interaction force between smaller nanospheres and graphene. This molecular-level understanding of the strain mechanism is important for strain engineering of graphene and other two-dimensional materials.",
author = "Yingjie Zhang and Mohammad Heiranian and Blanka Janicek and Zoe Budrikis and Stefano Zapperi and Huang, {Pinshane Y.} and Johnson, {Harley T.} and Aluru, {Narayana R.} and Lyding, {Joseph W.} and Nadya Mason",
note = "Funding Information: Y.Z. was supported by a Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign, with funding provided by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. N.M., N.R.A., and P.Y.H. acknowledge support from the NSF-MRSEC under Award Number DMR-1720633. Y.Z. acknowledges research support from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ENG-1434147. J.W.L. acknowledges support from the Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-16-1-3151. B.J. and P.Y.H. acknowledge support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Award No. FA9550-7-1-0213. The experimental work was carried out in part in the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory Central Facilities and in the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. M.H. and N.R.A. acknowledge the use of the parallel computing resource Blue Waters provided by the University of Illinois and National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Z.B. and S.Z. are supported by the ERC Advanced Grant No. 291002 SIZEFFECTS. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 American Chemical Society.",
year = "2018",
month = mar,
day = "14",
doi = "10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00273",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "18",
pages = "2098--2104",
journal = "Nano Letters",
issn = "1530-6984",
publisher = "American Chemical Society",
number = "3",
}