A heat and force locating sensor with nanoscale precision: a knitted graphene sheet

Fast and accurately locating the heating or force bearing points is essential to the maintenance and diagnosis of nano/micro-electromechanical systems. Here, a knitted graphene sheet (KGS), prepared by knitting graphene nanoribbons, is proposed as a heat or force sensor to locate the spot with nanoscale precision under thermal or mechanical loadings. The heat flux transport among the ribbons in the KGS is more difficult than in the ribbon due to the weaker van der Waals interactions among ribbons, so the heat energy can be restricted in the directly loaded ribbons over a period of time. Molecular dynamics results demonstrate that the KGS can efficiently locate and evaluate the spots and sizes of heat/force sources with high accuracy dependent on the width of the ribbons in the KGS. Our research provides a new detection approach and sheds light on designing and assembling KGS-based nanosensors for locating thermal and mechanical loads.