Disorder-driven transition to tubular phase in anisotropic two-dimensional materials

Abstract

We develop a theory of anomalous elasticity in disordered two-dimensional flexible materials with orthorhombic crystal symmetry. Similar to the clean case, we predict existence of infinitely many flat phases with anisotropic bending rigidity and Young's modulus showing power-law scaling with momentum controlled by a single universal exponent the very same as in the clean isotropic case. With increase of temperature or disorder these flat phases undergo crumpling transition. Remarkably, in contrast to the isotropic materials where crumpling occurs in all spatial directions simultaneously, the anisotropic materials crumple into tubular phase. In distinction to clean case in which crumpling transition happens at unphysically high temperatures, a disorder-induced tubular crumpled phase can exist even at room-temperature conditions. Our results are applied to anisotropic atomic single layers doped by adatoms or disordered by heavy ions bombarding.