Grazynes: carbon-based two-dimensional composites with anisotropic properties

Abstract

A new family of two-dimensional carbon allotropes is presented, based on graphene stripes linked to each other by acetylenic connections. The large amount of allowed connectivities demands for a family name to them: Grazynes. The present study reports the energetic, structural, elastic, and electronic physicochemical properties of a set of simple grazynes by means of density functional theory based calculations, suggesting also possible synthetic routes. The main results conclude that these are exotic yet stable materials, stiffer than graphene in the acetylenic direction, highly anisotropic, and with the presence of Dirac points in the reciprocal space along the graphene stripes direction resistant to strain, regardless of its direction. Thus, grazynes infer directionality in electron conductivity and resilience to the materials stretching/compression, quite important, for instance, in the nanoelectronics applicability point of view.