Effects of in-plane electric field and temperature change on Young's modulus of hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets with different chiralities

In the current investigation, the influences of in-plane electric field and temperature change on Young's modulus of boron nitride nanosheets (BNNs) are studied for both armchair and zigzag chiralities. To this end, the density functional theory (DFT) and quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA) are applied to calculate the total energy of the system. It is found that in the presence of temperature change, by applying the electric field along the zigzag and armchair directions, Young's modulus of BNNs decreases and increases, respectively. Moreover, it is revealed that the range of variation in Young's modulus of zigzag BNNs corresponding to different values of electric field is generally lower than that of armchair ones, but the slope of this variation with temperature for zigzag BNNs is more than Armchair ones. Also, it is observed that the rate of variation of Young's modulus with temperature at lower values is sharper than that at higher temperatures. This behavior can be useful in designing electro-thermo-mechanical nanosensors. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.