Why do Collapsed Carbon Nanotubes Twist?
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2016-01-21 v1
Abstract
We study the collapsing and subsequent spontaneous twisting of a carbon nanotube by in-situ transmission electron microscopy. A custom-sized nanotube is first created in the microscope by selectively extracting shells from a parent multi-wall tube. The few-wall, large-diameter daughter nanotube is driven to collapse via mechanical stimulation, after which the ribbon-like collapsed tube spontaneously twists along its long axis. In-situ diffraction experiments fully characterize the uncollapsed and collapsed tubes. From the experimental observations and associated theoretical analysis, the origin of the twisting is determined to be compressive strain due to charge imbalance.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1601.05393,
title = {Why do Collapsed Carbon Nanotubes Twist?},
author = {Hamid Reza Barzegar and Aiming Yan and Sinisa Coh and Eduardo Gracia-Espino and Claudia Ojeda-Aristizabal and Gabriel Dunn and Marvin L. Cohen and Steven G. Louie and Thomas Wagberg and Alex Zettl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1601.05393},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
12 Pages, 3 figures