Macroscopic self-reorientation of interacting two-dimensional crystals
10.1038/ncomms10800
Crossref journal-article
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Nature Communications (297)
Abstract

AbstractMicroelectromechanical systems, which can be moved or rotated with nanometre precision, already find applications in such fields as radio-frequency electronics, micro-attenuators, sensors and many others. Especially interesting are those which allow fine control over the motion on the atomic scale because of self-alignment mechanisms and forces acting on the atomic level. Such machines can produce well-controlled movements as a reaction to small changes of the external parameters. Here we demonstrate that, for the system of graphene on hexagonal boron nitride, the interplay between the van der Waals and elastic energies results in graphene mechanically self-rotating towards the hexagonal boron nitride crystallographic directions. Such rotation is macroscopic (for graphene flakes of tens of micrometres the tangential movement can be on hundreds of nanometres) and can be used for reproducible manufacturing of aligned van der Waals heterostructures.

Bibliography

Woods, C. R., Withers, F., Zhu, M. J., Cao, Y., Yu, G., Kozikov, A., Ben Shalom, M., Morozov, S. V., van Wijk, M. M., Fasolino, A., Katsnelson, M. I., Watanabe, K., Taniguchi, T., Geim, A. K., Mishchenko, A., & Novoselov, K. S. (2016). Macroscopic self-reorientation of interacting two-dimensional crystals. Nature Communications, 7(1).

Authors 16
  1. C. R. Woods (first)
  2. F. Withers (additional)
  3. M. J. Zhu (additional)
  4. Y. Cao (additional)
  5. G. Yu (additional)
  6. A. Kozikov (additional)
  7. M. Ben Shalom (additional)
  8. S. V. Morozov (additional)
  9. M. M. van Wijk (additional)
  10. A. Fasolino (additional)
  11. M. I. Katsnelson (additional)
  12. K. Watanabe (additional)
  13. T. Taniguchi (additional)
  14. A. K. Geim (additional)
  15. A. Mishchenko (additional)
  16. K. S. Novoselov (additional)
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Dates
Type When
Created 9 years, 5 months ago (March 10, 2016, 5:29 a.m.)
Deposited 2 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 4, 2023, 6:47 a.m.)
Indexed 5 days, 13 hours ago (Aug. 23, 2025, 9:17 p.m.)
Issued 9 years, 5 months ago (March 10, 2016)
Published 9 years, 5 months ago (March 10, 2016)
Published Online 9 years, 5 months ago (March 10, 2016)
Funders 0

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@article{Woods_2016, title={Macroscopic self-reorientation of interacting two-dimensional crystals}, volume={7}, ISSN={2041-1723}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10800}, DOI={10.1038/ncomms10800}, number={1}, journal={Nature Communications}, publisher={Springer Science and Business Media LLC}, author={Woods, C. R. and Withers, F. and Zhu, M. J. and Cao, Y. and Yu, G. and Kozikov, A. and Ben Shalom, M. and Morozov, S. V. and van Wijk, M. M. and Fasolino, A. and Katsnelson, M. I. and Watanabe, K. and Taniguchi, T. and Geim, A. K. and Mishchenko, A. and Novoselov, K. S.}, year={2016}, month=mar }