Mechanical properties of hydrogenated electron-irradiated graphene

A Weerasinghe and AR Muniz and A Ramasubramaniam and D Maroudas, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 120, 124301 (2016).

DOI: 10.1063/1.4962716

We report a systematic analysis on the effects of hydrogenation on the mechanical behavior of irradiated single-layer graphene sheets, including irradiation-induced amorphous graphene, based on molecular- dynamics simulations of uniaxial tensile straining tests and using an experimentally validated model of electron-irradiated graphene. We find that hydrogenation has a significant effect on the tensile strength of the irradiated sheets only if it changes the hybridization of the hydrogenated carbon atoms to sp(3), causing a reduction in the strength of irradiation-induced amorphous graphene by similar to 10GPa. Hydrogenation also causes a substantial decrease in the failure strain of the defective sheets, regardless of the hybridization of the hydrogenated carbon atoms, and in their fracture toughness, which decreases with increasing hydrogenation for a given irradiation dose. We characterize in detail the fracture mechanisms of the hydrogenated irradiated graphene sheets and elucidate the role of hydrogen and the extent of hydrogenation in the deformation and fracture processes. Our study sets the stage for designing hydrogenation and other chemical functionalization strategies toward tailoring the properties of defect- engineered ductile graphene. Published by AIP Publishing.

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