Structural transformation of partially confined copper nanowires inside defected carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The encapsulated copper atoms inside a defected single-walled carbon nanotube escape from the tube through the defect hole as the temperature increases. This causes the partially confined copper nanowires (CNWs) to undergo special structural transformations from a solid to a distinguishable helical layered structure and finally to the liquid state. The defect has a vital function in automatically adjusting the internal pressure and copper atom density. The critical structural transformation temperature of the CNW is significantly influenced by the confinement conditions of the carbon nanotube.

Negative differential resistance behavior of silicon monatomic chain encapsulated in carbon nanotubes

“…CNTs have attracted interest not only for their remarkable properties, such as high mechanical strength [8], high thermal and chemical stabilities [9], excellent heat conduction [10], and interesting electrical and electronic properties [11] but also because their hollow interior can serve as a nanometer-sized mold or template in material fabrication. Recently, significant interest has been shown on the filling of CNTs with materials and various investigations were carried out by researchers, such as the study of the transfer characteristics of water confined in CNTs [12], the structural transformation of partially confined copper nanowires inside defected CNTs [13], the structures and electrical transport properties of germanium nanowires encapsulated in CNTs [14], the structural, electronic, and vibrational properties of the finite carbon chains encapsulated inside CNTs [15], etc. These studies have revealed that matter in a confined nanospace might exhibit extraordinary unusual structures and electronic properties, which is quite different from the behavior of their bulk counterparts.…”

Adhesive contact between a graphene sheet and a nano-scale corrugated surface

“…The classical Lennard-Jones (L-J) potential is adopted to describe interactions between carbon and copper atoms at the interface, which has been proved to be able to describe the interactions between two kinds of atoms precisely [31,32], i.e. V (r) = 4ε(σ 12 /r 12 − σ 6 /r 6 ).…”

Filled Carbon Nanotubes: (X@CNTs)

“…Yet a variety of filled SWCNTs have been modelled (e.g. filled with materials as varied as KI [141], (Sc,Ti,V) 8 C 12 carbohedrenes [142], water [143], DNA [144], Cu [145], Ag and CrO 3 [32], acetylene [146], Ge [147]), a majority of theoretical works mostly concerns transition metal filled SWCNTs, more specifically Fe, and aims at predicting the related magnetic behaviour with respect to the iron wire structure [148,[149][150][151][152].…”

“…The magnetic behaviour of filled SWCNTs is also a fast-growing topic, although theoretical works [145,[149][150][151] are still more numerous than experimental ones [12,121,122,178]. (14,14) and (15,15) The latter examples showed that, for iron, the ferromagnetic property is maintained in spite of its nanowire morphology with a nanometre-sized diameter, as a good example of an intrinsic property of the encapsulated material that is transferred to the whole hybrid material.…”