Structural transformations of double-walled carbon nanotube bundle under hydrostatic pressure

Abstract

Three kinds of the response mechanisms to the external pressure have been found for double-walled carbon nanotube (DWNT) bundle, depending strongly on their average radius and symmetry. The small-diameter DWNT bundle undergoes a small discontinuous volume change, and then deform continuously. The intermediate-diameter DWNT bundle collapses completely after a structure phase transition (SPT). Significantly, two SPTs exist for the larger-diameter DWNT bundle if the outer tube has no $C_{6}$ or $C_{3}$ symmetry. It would be interesting to search for signatures of these different structural transformations by experimentally investigating mechanical, optical and thermal response functions of DWNT bundle.