Alignment of graphene nanoribbons by an electric field

In this paper, we develop an analytical approach to predict the field-induced alignment of cantilevered graphene nanoribbons. This approach is validated through molecular simulations using a constitutive atomic electrostatic model. Our results reveal that graphene’s field-oriented bending angle is roughly proportional to the square of field strength or to the graphene length for small deformations, while is roughly independent of graphene width. The effective bending stiffness and the longitudinal polarizability are found to be approximately proportional to the square of graphene length. Compared with carbon nanotubes, graphene nanoribbons are found to be more mechanically sensitive to an external electric field.