Interlayer Coupling Behaviors of Boron Doped Multilayer Graphene

GR Wang and XL Li and YL Wang and ZY Zheng and ZH Dai and XY Qi and LQ Liu and ZH Cheng and ZP Xu and PH Tan and Z Zhang, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C, 121, 26034-26043 (2017).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b05771

It is fundamentally important to understand how the interlayer interaction of neighboring graphene sheets is influenced by chemical doping. Here we investigate the interlayer coupling of multilayer graphene doped with controlled boron content via the Raman-active in- plane shear mode. The experimental results reveal a remarkable decline in the interlayer shear modulus as boron content increases, which is a direct consequence of the enlarged interlayer spacing, further supported by the molecular dynamic (MD) simulations. Nanoindentation tests were conducted to clarify the influence of interlayer coupling behaviors on nanomechanical behaviors of boron-doped bilayer graphene. As the interlayer slippage is induced under shear deformations, the weakened shear resistance would lead to the reduced energy dissipation during sliding process. Our results provide valuable insight into fundamental mechanical properties of boron-doped graphene and its interfaces and potentially allows tailoring of interlayer coupling for low energy dissipation electromechanical devices.

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