Generation of the simulation box

Nomenclature of the carbon flakes used

Carbon flakes were generated by starting with four carbon atoms in fixed positions, forming three 120 degree angles, and consecutively completing three or more carbon atoms on the edge nearest to the centre to a complete hexagonal or pentagonal cycle. The location of the pentagonal cycles (defects) was chosen randomly, but then a manual selection was done and the least symmetric flakes were discarded. Eight types with different locations of defects were chosen to construct the CDC carbon model. The flakes were created on a single plane first, keeping only the topology and bond lengths in correspondence with the force field. To get their real 3-dimensional shape, they were equilibrated using a MD simulation 0.1ns long with 0.1fs timestep on room temperature (293K) in vacuo. The initial (topological) shapes and their shapes after MD simulation are shown below.