Nanoserpents: Graphene Nanoribbon Motion on Two-Dimensional Hexagonal Materials

WG Ouyang and D Mandelli and M Urbakh and O Hod, NANO LETTERS, 18, 6009-6016 (2018).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02848

We demonstrate snake-like motion of graphene nanoribbons atop graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) substrates using fully atomistic nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The sliding dynamics of the edge pulled nanoribbons is found to be determined by the interplay between in-plane ribbon elasticity and interfacial lattice mismatch. This results in an unusual dependence of the friction-force on the ribbon's length, exhibiting an initial linear rise that levels-off above a junction-dependent threshold value dictated by the pre-slip stress distribution within the slider. As part of this letter, we present the LAMMPS implementation of the registry-dependent interlayer potentials for graphene, h-BN, and their heterojunctions that were used herein, which provides enhanced performance and accuracy.

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