Programmable Strainscapes in a Two-Dimensional (2D) Material Monolayer

QC Liu and Y Zhang and HY Dong and N Mason and AM van der Zande and HT Johnson, ACS NANO, 19, 30125-30136 (2025).

DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c06381

Introducing mechanical strain into two-dimensional (2D) materials offers a powerful way to modulate their properties, yet precise strain control remains a significant challenge. By depositing metal oxide films as stressors on selected regions of 2D materials, the process-induced strain generates spatially resolved eigenstrain fields within the stressor-covered areas and modifies the strain distribution in adjacent regions, enabling the creation of strainscapes-complex, spatially varying strain tensor fields that were previously difficult to realize experimentally. Moreover, this technique offers a more versatile and powerful approach at the device level compared with conventional global loading methods. However, it also introduces more complex loading configurations and necessitates a fast and accurate tool for stressor design and strainscape prediction. Here, we show that the three- dimensional (3D) interfacial problem can be simplified into a 2D Eshelby inclusion problem and subsequently solved by a complex potential method in linear elasticity. Additionally, we develop a fully atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulation model to interpret the strain in both 2D materials and stressors and validate the theoretical predictions. Theoretical and MD simulation results show excellent agreement with experimental measurements in terms of strain magnitude and distribution. The theoretical framework and stressor-based methods provide a rapid and precise tool for programming strainscapes in 2D materials and demonstrate the ability to tune pseudomagnetic fields (PMFs) in a graphene monolayer both spatially and temporally. This work lays the foundation for stressor-based, strain-engineered quantum properties in 2D materials and highlights the power of the mechanics theory in advancing the field of 2D materials.

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