Molecular dynamics simulation of graphene sheets joining under ion beam irradiation

In this paper, the nanojoining method of graphene sheets (GSs) by ion beam irradiation is proposed and the joining process is researched by classical molecular dynamics simulations. We demonstrate that the carbon ion beam irradiation should result in the joining of overlapped GSs. And it is found that these joining processes are attributed to two different mechanisms. In addition, the influences of the ion parameters on the properties of the graphene joints are also investigated and the optimum ion parameters are derived for industrial applications.