Soggy origami

摘要

Flat microstructures can be designed to spontaneously fold into three-dimensional shapes. Computer simulations of water droplets on sheets of carbon atoms now extend this concept to the nanometre scale.rnExplanations of nanometre-scale phenomena often require strange bedfellows of scientific concepts and terminology. The work reported by Patra et al. in Nano Letters nicely illustrates this trend by marrying chemistry, fluid mechanics, mechanical engineering and physics. The authors have used molecular dynamics simulations to show that the catalytic action of nanodroplets of fluids can cause a simple object-an atomically thin layer of carbon atoms, known as a graphene sheet-to fold spontaneously into complex shapes.