Mechanical properties of kirigami phosphorene via molecular dynamics simulation

Abstract The newly discovered two-dimensional phosphorene suffers low stretchability which limits its application in flexible devices. Herein we employ kirigami technique to overcome this limitation. Molecular dynamics simulation is employed to investigate the mechanical properties of kirigami-phosphorene under shear and tensile loadings. Our simulation results show that loading type, intrinsic structural anisotropy, and the height of middle cuts are three key factors that govern the mechanical response of kirigami-phosphorene. Under the tensile loading along the armchair direction, phosphorene exhibits a considerable increase in its tensile strain. By contrast, phosphorene is too weak to stand any structural modification induced by kirigami in the zigzag direction. Under shear loading, there is merely no improvement in the shear properties of kirigami-phosphorene. Our results demonstrate the prospective applications of kirigami-phosphorene along the armchair direction in modern wearable, and stretchable electronics and optoelectronics devices.