Diverse corrugation pattern in radially shrinking carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Stable cross sections of multiwalled carbon nanotubes subjected to electron-beam irradiation are investigated in the realm of the continuum mechanics approximation. The self-healing nature of sp 2 graphitic sheets implies that selective irradiation of the outermost walls causes their radial shrinkage with the remaining inner walls undamaged. The shrinking walls exert high pressure on the interior part of nanotubes, yielding a wide variety of radial-corrugation patterns ͑i.e., circumferentially wrinkling structures͒ in the cross section. All corrugation patterns can be classified into two deformation phases for which the corrugation amplitudes of the innermost wall differ significantly.

An elastica model that predicts radial corrugations in a double- walled carbon nanotube

“…We use this model to study the buckling of the elastic ring as the radius of the rigid ring is varied. Our model predicts radial corrugations, a type of deformation studied recently in Sato, 2008, 2009;Shima et al, 2010).…”

“…Radially corrugated MWNT have yet to be observed experimentally. However in (Shima et al, 2010), Shima et al formulate a problem in which the inner walls of a MWNT are subjected to pressure by the radial shrinkage of the outer walls of the tube. This pressure occurs because, as the radii of the outer walls shrink, the van der Waals interaction between the outer walls and the inner walls becomes repulsive.…”

Elastic and Plastic Deformation of Carbon Nanotubes

“…To date, many intriguing post-buckling morphologies of nanotubes have been widely predicted in theory and observed in experiments (Shima 2012): local kinks in bent single-walled nanotubes (Iijima 1996), rippling or Yoshimura (diamond-shaped) patterns in tens-walled nanotubes (Arroyo 2003), and radial corrugation patterns under axially symmetric load (Shima et al 2010;. One of the most outstanding features of post-buckling nanotubes is their remarkable buckling capacity.…”

“…The salient feature is that the effective size of the "hole" decreases (see top view) at the expense of local diameter reduction (side view). This vacancy-induced reduction in local diameter implies that, if many large-scale vacancies are dispersed intentionally, then we will observe a global diameter reduction over the whole tube surface damaged (Shima et al 2010).…”

Electronic spectral shift of oxygen-filled (6,6) carbon nanotubes

“…In addition to the potential utility for energy-storage materials and molecular transport devices, the filling of carbon nanotubes is believed to open up novel applications of drug delivery to the cell [5,9,10]. In light to mechanical flexibility of nanotubes [11], furthermore, effects of their cross-sectional deformation on the properties of the encapsulated molecules have also been suggested [12,13].…”