To identify the relation between torque and superlubric motion, we investigate the interlayer sliding behavior of two graphene disks with numerical computation methods. The potential energy, lateral force and torque between the top and bottom graphene disks, which are associated with misfit angle, translational displacement and interlayer distance, are analyzed. The results show that the rotation of the top disk is feeble for commensurate state, but it is difficult to realize superlubricity due to the lateral force fluctuating remarkably. For incommensurate state, the flake exhibits vanishing torque approaching to zero only for partial sliding directions. The superlubricity between the top and bottom disks will be eliminated due to torque-induced reorientation along other sliding directions. Whether for commensurate or incommensurate contact, the amplitudes of the lateral force(516 p N and 13 p N, respectively) are in qualitative agreement with experimental observation(typically 250 p N and 50 p N, respectively). It shows that the interlayer torque is insensitive to the top disk size with incommensurate contact. The results suggest that the superlubric motion of graphene disk can be controlled by adjusting the torque.
Thousands of plant and animal species have been observed to have superhydrophobic surfaces that lead to various novel behaviors. These observations have inspired attempts to create artificial superhydrophobic surfaces, given that such surfaces have multitudinous applications. Superhydrophobicity is an enhanced effect of surface roughness and there are known relationships that correlate surface roughness and superhydrophobicity, based on the underlying physics. However, while these examples demonstrate the level of roughness they tell us little about the independence of this effect in terms of its scale. Thus, they are not capable of explaining why such naturally occurring surfaces commonly have micron-submicron sizes. Here we report on the discovery of a new relation, its physical basis and its experimental verification. The results reveal that scaling-down roughness into the micro-submicron range is a unique and elegant strategy to not only achieve superhydrophobicity but also to increase its stability against environmental disturbances. This new relation takes into account the previously overlooked but key fact that the accumulated line energy arising from the numerous solid-water-air intersections that can be distributed over the apparent contact area, when air packets are trapped at small scales on the surface, can dramatically increase as the roughness scale shrinks. This term can in fact become the dominant contributor to the surface energy and so becomes crucial for accomplishing superhydrophobicity. These findings guide fabrication of stable super water-repellant surfaces.
The effects of an applied low frequency field on the dynamics of a two-level atom interacting with a single-mode field are investigated. It is shown that the time evolution of the atomic population is mainly controlled by the coupling constants and the frequency of the low frequency field, which leads to a low frequency modulation function for the time evolution of the upper state population. The amplitude of the modulation function becomes larger as the coupling constants increase. The frequency of the modulation function is proportional to the frequency of the low frequency field, and decreases with increasing coupling constant.
The electronic and transport properties of embedded boron nitride(BN) nanodot superlattices of armchair graphene nanoribbons are studied by first-principles calculations.The band structure of the graphene superlattice strongly depends on the geometric shape and size of the BN nanodot,as well as the concentration of nanodots.The conduction bands and valence bands near the Fermi level are nearly symmetric,which is induced by electron-hole symmetry.When B and N atoms in the graphene superlattices with a triangular BN nanodot are exchanged,the valance bands and conduction bands are inverted with respect to the Fermi level due to electron-hole symmetry.In addition,the hybridization ofπorbitals from C and redundant B atoms or N atoms leads to a localized band appearing near the Fermi level.Our results also show a series of resonant peaks appearing in the conductance.This strongly depends on the distance of the two BN nanodots and on the shape of the BN nanodot. Controlling these parameters might allow the modulation of the electronic response of the systems.
