Graphene Origami with Highly Tunable Coefficient of Thermal Expansion

The coefficient of thermal expansion, which measures the change in length, area, or volume of a material upon heating, is a fundamental parameter with great relevance for many applications. Although there are various routes to design materials with targeted coefficient of thermal expansion at the macroscale, no approaches exist to achieve a wide range of values in graphene-based structures. Here, we use molecular dynamics simulations to show that graphene origami structures obtained through pattern-based surface functionalization provide tunable coefficients of thermal expansion from large negative to large positive. We show that the mechanisms giving rise to this property are exclusive to graphene origami structures, emerging from a combination of surface functionalization, large out-of-plane thermal fluctuations, and the three-dimensional geometry of origami structures. ; The research reported in this publication was supported by funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). This work used computational resources of the Supercomputing Laboratory at KAUST. S.Y.K. acknowledges support from the Mid-Career Researcher Support Program (No. 2019R1A2C2011312) of the National Research Foundation of Korea.