How the ‘Simply-Mechanics’ Works for Understanding Nanomaterials Making

Boris I. Yakobson

Department of Materials Science & NanoEngineering, Department of Chemistry, and the Richard E. Smalley Institute, Rice University, Houston, USA

We will discuss how the complex issues or chemical synthesis of low dimensional materials can be understood from pure mechanics or geometrical perspective. In other words, understanding “chemical synthesis without any chemistry”, is it possible? First was the remarkable advance in quantitative teory of nanotube growth using screw-dislocation views [1]. Second, more subtle yet still mostly mechanics and even mostly continuum mechanics, allows us to explain single-chirality peaks in nanotube production [2]. We will further turn to 2D-mterials and discuss theories and mechanisms behind the recent advances in salt-assisted massive synthesis of a “library” of 2D-materials and alloys [3], and in the evolutionary selection mechanisms of growth of ~1 m monocrystal graphene [4]. We will detail most recent advance in theory demonstrating how the vicinal-surface complementarity (mechanics again!) guides the successful growth of low-symmetry materials, like h-BN and TMD [5].

[1] “Dislocation theory of chirality-controlled nanotube growth”, F. Ding et al., PNAS, 106, 2506 (2009);  “In situ evidence for chirality-dependent growth rates of individual carbon nanotubes”, R. Rao et al., Nature Mater., 11, 213 (2012).

[2] “Why carbon nanotubes grow chiral”, V. Artyukhov et al., Nature Comm., 5, 4892 (2014).

[3] “A library of atomically-thin metal chalcogenides”, J. Zhou et al., Nature, 556, 355 (2018).

[4] “Evolutionary selection growth of two-dimensional materials on polycrystalline substrates”, I. Vlassiouk et al., Nature Mater. 17, 318 (2018).

[5] “How the complementarity at vicinal steps enables growth of 2D monocrystals”, K. Bets et al., Nano Lett. 19, 2027 (2019).

个人简介：

Dr. Yakobson is the Karl F. Hasselmann Chair in Engineering. Dr. Yakobson holds a joint appointment between the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and the Department of Chemistry. In 2008, Yakobson received a Nano 50 Award from the science magazine, Nanotech Briefs, for his innovation in nanotechnology, and in 2009, the Department of Energy R&D Award. He received his Ph.D. in 1982 from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Yakobson is an editorial board member of the Journal of Nanoparticle Research and a member of the American Physical Society and the Electrochemical Society.