Shear annealing of a self-interacting sheet.

Abstract

2D materials such as graphene, graphene oxide, transition metal dichalcogenides, and 2D polymers have unique properties which allow them to be used in many applications from electronics to energy to biotechnology. Producing and applying these materials often involves solution processing. Previous computational studies have observed 2D sheets in shear and extensional flows, but have focused on steady flows, even though the dynamics of these materials might exhibit hysteresis. In this work, we study 2D sheets with short-ranged attractive interactions under time-varying shear. We show that, even with relatively simple protocols, the properties of sheet suspensions can be tuned.