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Abstract

Van der Waals interactions play a fundamental role in biology, physics, and chemistry, in particular in the
self-assembly and the ensuing function of nanostructured materials. Here we utilize an efficient microscopic
method to demonstrate that van der Waals interactions in nano-materials act at distances greater than typically
assumed, and can be characterized by different scaling laws depending on the dimensionality and size of the system.
Specifically, we study the behavior of van der Waals interactions in single-layer and multi-layer graphene,
fullerenes of varying size, single-wall carbon nanotubes, and graphene nanoribbons. As a function of nanostructure
size, the van der Waals coefficients follow unusual trends for all of the considered systems, and deviate
significantly from the conventionally employed pairwise-additive picture. We propose that the peculiar van der
Waals interactions in nanostructured materials could be exploited to control their self-assembly.