Skip to content

Orientational Melting in Carbon Nanotube Ropes

Young-Kyun Kwon, David Tomanek

cond-mat.mtrl-sciarXiv:cond-mat/9910203

Abstract

Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the possibility of an orientational melting transition within a "rope" of (10,10) carbon nanotubes. When twisting nanotubes bundle up during the synthesis, orientational dislocations or twistons arise from the competition between the anisotropic inter-tube interactions, which tend to align neighboring tubes, and the torsion rigidity that tends to keep individual tubes straight. We map the energetics of a rope containing twistons onto a lattice gas model and find that the onset of a free "diffusion" of twistons, corresponding to orientational melting, occurs at TOM > 160 K.

Create a lesson