Effective elastic properties of two dimensional multiplanar hexagonal nanostructures

Abstract A generalized analytical approach is presented to derive closed-form formulae for the elastic moduli of hexagonal multiplanar nano-structures. Hexagonal nano-structural forms are common for various materials. Four different classes of materials (single layer) from a structural point of view are proposed to demonstrate the validity and prospective application of the developed formulae. For example, graphene, an allotrope of carbon, consists of only carbon atoms to form a honeycomb like hexagonal lattice in a single plane, while hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) consists of boron and nitrogen atoms to form the hexagonal lattice in a single plane. Unlike graphene and hBN, there are plenty of other materials with hexagonal nano-structures that have the atoms placed in multiple planes such as stanene (consists of only Sn atoms) and molybdenum disulfide (consists of two different atoms: Mo and S). The physics based high-fidelity analytical model developed in this article are capable of obtaining the elastic properties in a computationally efficient manner for wide range of such materials with hexagonal nano-structures that are broadly classified in four classes from structural viewpoint. Results are provided for materials belonging to all the four classes, wherein a good agreement between the elastic moduli obtained using the proposed formulae and available scientific literature is observed.