Mechanics interpretation on the bending stiffness and wrinkled pattern of graphene.

In this paper we attempt to answer two questions on graphene from a mechanic’s viewpoint: why does this one-atom-thick monolayer have finite bending stiffness to ensure its stability? and what is its wrinkle mechanism? As for the first question, it is found that the repulsive residual internal moment in the bond angle can lead to a nonzero bending stiffness, which makes the graphene flat. Together with long-range attraction among atoms, such as van der Waals forces, a graphene prefers to have a self-buckling wrinkled configuration with many waves. The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.4024178