Principal Investigator Zhao Qin
Low-dimensional nanomaterials are attractive to assemble and form functional materials for various applications. The ability to control the morphology of nanomaterials is critical for manufacturing as well as for utilizing them as functional materials or devices. Here, I propose to use low-dimensional carbon materials as the basic building blocks, by mimicking the biological system—including structure, process and function—to exploit the possibility of utilizing them for large scale engineering applications. My study demonstrate that multiscale computational modeling provides a very efficient tool to understand how mechanical loading, chemical composition and chemical environment can affect the material’s mechanical functions. I can thereby derive scaling laws according to computational simulations and applied the knowledge to large scale applications.