Radial Elasticity of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes

I. Palaci, S. Fedrigo, H. Brune, C. Klinke, M. Chen, and E. Riedo
Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 175502 – Published 5 May 2005

Abstract

We report an experimental and a theoretical study of the radial elasticity of multiwalled carbon nanotubes as a function of external radius. We use atomic force microscopy and apply small indentation amplitudes in order to stay in the linear elasticity regime. The number of layers for a given tube radius is inferred from transmission electron microscopy, revealing constant ratios of external to internal radii. This enables a comparison with molecular dynamics results, which also shed some light onto the applicability of Hertz theory in this context. Using this theory, we find a radial Young modulus strongly decreasing with increasing radius and reaching an asymptotic value of 30±10GPa.

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  • Received 22 December 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.175502

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

I. Palaci1,2, S. Fedrigo2, H. Brune2, C. Klinke2,3, M. Chen1, and E. Riedo1,*

  • 1School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
  • 2Institute of the Physics of Nanostructures, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 3IBM Watson Research Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA

  • *To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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Vol. 94, Iss. 17 — 6 May 2005

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