Tailoring the Resonance of Bilayer Graphene Sheets by Interlayer sp(3) Bonds

HF Zhan and YY Zhang and JM Bell and BC Zhang and YT Gu, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C, 118, 732-739 (2014).

DOI: 10.1021/jp4109442

Graphene-based resonators are envisioned to build the ultimate limit of 2-D nanoelectromechanical system due to their ultrasensitive detection of mass, force, pressure, and charge. However, such application has been greatly impeded by their extremely low quality factor. In the present work, we explore, using the large-scale molecular dynamics simulation, the possibility of tailoring the resonance properties of a bilayer graphene sheet (GS) with interlayer sp(3) bonds. For the bilayer GS resonator with interlayer sp(3) bonds, we discovered that the sp(3) bonds can either degrade or enhance the resonance properties of the resonator depending on their density and location. It is found that the distribution of sp(3) bonds only along the edges of either pristine or hydrogenated bilayer GS leads to a greatly enhanced quality factor. A quality factor of similar to 1.18 x 10(5) is observed for a 3.07 x 15.31 nm(2) bilayer GS resonator with sp(3) bonds, which is more than 30 times larger comparing with that of its pristine counterpart. The present study demonstrates that the resonance properties of a bilayer GS resonator can be tuned by introducing sp(3) bonds. This finding provides a useful guideline for the synthesis of the bilayer GS for its application as a resonator component.

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