Large displacement strain theory and its application to graphene

Abstract

Under the application of a force, a material will deform and, hence, the crystal lattice will experience strain. This induced strain will alter the electronic properties of the material. In particular, strain in graphene generates an artificial vector potential which, if spatially varying, admits a pseudo-magnetic field. Current theories for spatially varying strain use linear or finite strain theory whose derivation is based on small displacements of infinitesimal length vectors. Here we apply a differential geometry method to derive a strain theory for large displacements of finite length vectors. This method gives a finite displacement term whose contribution is comparable to that of the linear strain term. Further to this, we show that a 'domain wall'-like pseudo-magnetic field profile can be generated when a wide graphene ribbon is subjected to a pair of opposing point forces (point stretch). The resulting field is a function of the new finite displacement term only and displays a maximum strength of over three times that which is predicted by the linear strain theory. These results extend the current theories of strain, which are based on the transformation of infinitesimal length vectors, to finite length vectors, thus providing an accurate description of pseudo-magnetic field structures in strained materials.