Coursera Spring Sale
40% Off Coursera Plus Annual!
Grab it
Attend a theoretical physics seminar exploring the instability of compressed graphene sheets embedded in or placed on compliant polymer matrices or liquids in gravitational fields. Discover how strong coupling with soft polymer matrices leads to the emergence of flexural surface acoustic waves (FSAW) not observed in conventional thin layer-crystalline substrate systems, where tangential elastic displacement is minimal compared to vertical displacement due to graphene's exceptionally high Young's modulus. Learn about FSAW softening caused by external compression of graphene sheets above critical deformation, resulting in sheet wrinkling in the form of standing spatially-periodic sinusoidal waves and nonlinear self-localization leading to fold formation with large vertical displacement amplitudes as graphene compression increases. Examine how strongly localized folds exhibit different symmetries in graphene sheets on or within matrix volumes, with self-localization of modulated structures described by nonlinear Ginzburg-Landau type envelope equations with negative dispersion. Understand how self-localized states of wrinkled graphene take the form of static envelope solitons with localization lengths decreasing with increasing external compression, supported by molecular dynamics modeling for uniaxial and biaxial compression as well as shear deformation of graphene sheets.
