Energetics of graphene origami and their "spatial resolution"

Y Yang and ZH Zhang and ZL Hu and ES Penev and BI Yakobson, MRS BULLETIN, 46, 481-486 (2021).

DOI: 10.1557/s43577-020-00018-8

The extreme thinness of graphene combined with its tensile strength made it a material appealing for discussing and even making complex cut- kirigami or folded-only origami. In the case of origami, its stability is mainly defined by the positive energy of the single- or double-fold curvature deformation counterbalanced by the energy reduction due to favorable van der Waals contacts. These opposite sign contributions also have notably different scaling with the size L of the construction, the contacts contributing in proportion to area similar to L-2, single folds as similar to L, and highly strained double-fold corners as only similar to L-0 = const. Computational analysis with realistic atomistic-elastic representation of graphene allows one to quantify these energy contributions and to establish the length scale, where a single fold is favored (7 nm < L < 21 nm) or a double fold becomes sustainable (L > 21 nm), defining the size of the smallest possible complex origami designs as L >> 21 nm.

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