Search results for "line defects"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Textures in hexatic films of nonchiral liquid crystals: Symmetry breaking and modulated phases
1994
Novel modulated textures, such as stripes and multiarmed star defects, have been observed in freely suspended films of nonchiral liquid crystals just below the smectic-$C$ to hexatic phase transition. Detailed studies using depolarized reflection microscopy suggest that the stripes are locally chiral surface splay domains of the smectic-$L$ phase, a tilted hexatic not previously identified in thermotropic liquid crystals. Line defects which form additional domain walls in the hexatic lattice lead to characteristic modulations of the basic one-dimensional stripe pattern. Inside thick circular islands, for example, stripes form circumferentially and the lines form centered 12-armed stars, res…
Rippling of two-dimensional materials by line defects
2020
Two-dimensional materials and their mechanical properties are known to be profoundly affected by rippling deformations. However, although ripples are fairly well understood, less is known about their origin and controlled modification. Here, motivated by recent reports of laser-controlled creation of line defects in graphene, we investigate how line defects could be used to control rippling in graphene and other two-dimensional materials. By sequential multi-scale coupling of density-functional tight-binding and continuum elasticity simulations, we quantify the amount of rippling when the number and the cumulative length of the line defects increase. Simulations show that elastic sheets wit…
On the superconductivity of graphite interfaces
2014
We propose an explanation for the appearance of superconductivity at the interfaces of graphite with Bernal stacking order. A network of line defects with flat bands appears at the interfaces between two slightly twisted graphite structures. Due to the flat band the probability to find high temperature superconductivity at these quasi one-dimensional corridors is strongly enhanced. When the network of superconducting lines is dense it becomes effectively two-dimensional. The model provides an explanation for several reports on the observation of superconductivity up to room temperature in different oriented graphite samples, graphite powders as well as graphite-composite samples published i…
Beyond ideal two-dimensional metals: Edges, vacancies, and polarizabilities
2018
Recent experimental discoveries of graphene-stabilized patches of two-dimensional (2D) metals have motivated also their computational studies. However, so far the studies have been restricted to ideal and infinite 2D metallic monolayers, which is insufficient because in reality the properties of such metallic patches are governed by microstructures pervaded by edges, defects, and several types of perturbations. Here we use density-functional theory to calculate edge and vacancy formation energies of hexagonal and square lattices of 45 elemental 2D metals. We find that the edge and vacancy formation energies are strongly correlated and decrease with increasing Wigner-Seitz radii, analogously…