Physics Colloquia: Graphene Statistical Mechanics

Abstract: Thermalized two-dimensional metamaterials, such as graphene at room temperature, exhibit novel mechanical properties by virtue of being bending dominated, rather than stretching dominated.  A wide variety of responses can be obtained simply by varying purely geometrical properties such as size, shape and topology. This opens an entirely novel domain of control by geometry, rather than external fields. Furthermore, by slicing and dicing to change the topology of fluctuating two-dimensional sheets, one can realize long sought-after phenomena such as the thermal crumpling of elastic surfaces and multiple origami-like folding. I will discuss  developments in this area including theory, simulations and experimental tests and challenges.