The latest fashion: Graphene edges can be tailor-made

Rice University theory shows it should be possible to tune material’s properties

Graphene nanoribbons can be enticed to form favorable "reconstructed" edges by pulling them apart with the right force and at the right temperature, according to researchers at Rice University. The illustration shows the crack at the edge that begins the formation of five- and seven-atom pair under the right conditions. Illustration by ZiAng Zhang

Theoretical physicists at Rice University are living on the edge as they study the astounding properties of graphene. In a new study, they figure out how researchers can fracture graphene nanoribbons to get the edges they need for applications.

New research by Rice physicist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues shows it should be possible to control the edge properties of graphene nanoribbons by controlling the conditions under which the nanoribbons are pulled apart.

In the work, which appeared this month in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Nanoscale, the Rice team used sophisticated computer modeling to show it’s possible to rip nanoribbons and get graphene with either pristine zigzag edges or what are called reconstructed zigzags.

– See more at: Rice News

Sinuous grain boundaries in graphene demystified

The January 21 issue of Adv. Funct. Mater. features on its back cover work on graphene grain boundaries

The image shows a simulated grain boundary stitching two graphene domains tilted at a 28° angle exhibits a well-defined sinuous shape, which is revealed to be energetically preferred. Such sinuous grain boundary, appeared to be a curved river on land, are highlighted by B. I. Yakobson and co-workers on page 367 as a new channel to explore novel electronic behavior in graphene and to reach the as yet unexplored flatlands of two-dimensional materials.

Sparking Industrial Breakthroughs

2015 CASC Brochure features work from the group

Images illustrating two works from the group are featured in the 2015 Brochure published by the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation – an alliance of 79 of America’s most forward thinking research universities, national labs and computing centers, including Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology.  On page 2, the  highlight box “Something new under the sun” shows a collage based on a recent Nanoscale paper, and our extensive sampling of the CNT end-caps energy landscape, published in ACS Nano, is featured in the top box on page 3.