Mechanics of evaporation-driven folding of graphene sheets

Abstract eng:
We propose a mechanics theory of folding two-dimensional (2D) graphene sheets from rapid evaporation of its liquid suspension. Using an energy criterion that contains the competition among bending energy of graphene sheets, surface energy of graphene sheets and liquid and their interfacial energy, and binding energy of folded graphene sheets, we are able to quantitatively correlate folded three-dimensional (3D) graphene structures with both geometric size and surface wettability of 2D graphene sheets. Theoretical predictions of folded 3D graphene structures agree well with parallel molecular dynamics simulations. Our theory is of immediate interest to the study of crumping/folding original 2D structures to 3D shapes through evaporation of a liquid suspension.

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