Nanoscale carbon nanotube motor schematics and simulations for micro-electro-mechanical machines

Abstract

We investigated nanoscale engine schematics composed of a carbon nanotube oscillator, motor, channel, nozzle, etc. For the fluidic gas driven carbon nanotube motor, the origination of the torque was the friction between the carbon nanotube surface and the fluidic gases. The density and flow rate of the working gas or liquid are very important for the carbon nanotube motor. When multi-wall carbon nanotubes with very low rotating energy barriers are used for carbon nanotube motors, the fluidic gas driven carbon nanotube motors can be effectively operated and controlled by the gas flow rates. The variations of the flux were the same as the variations of the carbon nanotube oscillator. Although the carbon nanotube oscillator continually vibrated, since the angular velocity of the motor was saturated at a constant value, the speed of the nanoscale engine could be controlled by the frequency of the carbon nanotube oscillator below the maximum speed.

Multiscale modeling and simulation of nanotube-based torsional oscillators

“…Their extraordinary mechanical and electrical properties [2] ensure that CNTs will play an essential role in the design of nanoscale devices, such as nanotweezers [3], nanogears [4], nanotube motors [5], and axial nano-oscillators [6]. Recently, a nanoelectromechanical device [7][8][9] based on an individual CNT serving as a torsional spring and mechanical support has been successfully fabricated.…”

Design of a one-way nanovalve based on carbon nanotube junction and C60

“…Over the past years, the great effort has been made along this direction. Specially, many computer simulations have focused on the issue (Whitby and Quirke 2007;Hummer et al 2001;Majumder et al 2005;Holt et al 2006;Supple and Quirke 2003;Cannon and Hess 2010;Tuzun et al 1996Tuzun et al , 1997Won et al 2006;Skoulidas et al 2002;Chen et al 2005;Solares et al 2004;Wan et al 2005;Li et al 2007;Insepov et al 2006;Longhurst and Quirke 2007;Kang and Hwang 2004;Král and Sadeghpour 2002;Kwon et al 1999;Somada et al 2009;Král and Tománek 1999;Wang et al 1999;Arora and Sandler 2007;Park et al 2006). The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that, with the right combination of carbon nanotube intramolecular junction (Li et al 2003;Jin et al 2008;Rodríguez-Manzo et al 2009) and C 60 , it is possible to design a nanoscale analogy of one-way valve.…”

A nano converter from carbon nanotubes with multiple output signals

“…It has inspired a lot of application studies for fabricating an NEMS from CNTs over the past decade, such as gigahertz oscillators [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], switch [10], bearings [11,12], nanopump [13,14] and motors [15][16][17][18][19][20]. For the interlayer motion of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), both of the rotational and translational motions may exist, which suggests signal transmission with a nano device.…”