Research Rotation Project

Modeling Amorphous Graphene

Michael Thorpe
Home Department - Physics
Areas of Study - Biological Physics and Condensed Matter Theory
Office - PSF 359B
Phone - 4809653085
E-mail - mft@asu.edu
Designation - Theoretical

Graphene is a 2D carbon layer in the form of a honeycomb lattice of edge-sharing sixfold rings that has recently been synthesized in the lab. It holds great promise for nano-circuitry applications, but these may be thwarted by the presence of small amounts of amorphous graphene, which contain five and seven fold rings. In this project we will computer generate amorphous graphene, and then study the pair distribution function, and the related structure factor that can be determined by x-ray and/or neutron scattering. A small piece of computer generated amorphous graphene is shown. Note that all atoms are covalently bonded to exactly 3 neighbors. Also note the different rings sizes. The shortest bonds are shown in red and the longest in blue, with the remaining colored green. If you are interested in this project, please see me during the week of August 24 - 28.