Single wall carbon nanotubes interaction energies

The electronic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes have been studied theoretically using different methods[4-12. It is found that if n — wr is a multiple of 3, the nanotube will be metallic otherwise, it wiU exhibit a semiconducting behavior. Calculations on a 2D array of identical armchair nanotubes with parallel tube axes within the local density approximation framework indicate that a crystal with a hexagonal packing of the tubes is most stable, and that intertubule interactions render the system semiconducting with a zero energy gap[35]. 

The single-wall carbon nanocone-nanohom packing efficiencies, and interaction-energy parameters, are intermediate between those of fullerene and single-wall carbon nanotube clusters. Therefore an in-between behaviour is expected. 

Because the layers of LCs transmit elastic energy, they can be used to do mechanical work, such as to assemble nanomaterials and induce topological defects in LCs. The feasibility of this scheme has been illustrated in the lab scale. For instance, linear and hexagonal arrays of nanoparticles were elastically trapped at various sites of smectic defects. Single wall carbon nanotubes could be organized into 2D parallel sheets between smectic layers due to specific interactions between n and n interactions between the hexagonal rings of the carbon nanotubes and the aromatic moieties of LC molecules [62, 67, 71]. 

Y. Shibuta and J. A. Elliott. A molecular dynamics study of the carbon-catalyst interaction energy for multi-scale modelling of single wall carbon nanotube growth. Chem. Phys. Lett. 427, 2006, 365-370. 

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