Gas-like adhesion of two-dimensional materials onto solid surfaces

The adhesion of two-dimensional (2D) materials to other surfaces is so far believed to be a solid-solid mechanical contact. Here, we conduct both atomistic simulations and theoretical modeling to show that there exists a reversible conversion of energy between thermal and mechanical work in the attachment/detachment of 2D materials on/off a surface, indicating that 2D materials adhesion is fundamentally like gas adsorption rather than solid adhesion. We reveal that the underlying mechanism of this intriguing gas-like adhesion for 2D materials is the entropy difference between their freestanding and adhered states. Both the theoretical model and atomistic simulations predict that adhesion induced entropy difference increases with increasing adhesion energy and decreasing equilibrium binding distance. The present findings provide a fundamental guidance toward understanding the adhesion of 2D materials, which is important for designing 2D materials based devices and may have general implications for nanoscale efficient energy conversion.