Structures, Symmetries, Mechanics and Motors of carbon nanotubes

Z. C. Tu, Z. C. Ou-Yang

Published 2002-05-27, updated 2005-01-05Version 3

The structures and symmetries of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are introduced in detail. The physical properties of SWNTs induced by their symmetries can be described by tensors in mathematical point of view. It is found that there are 2, 4, and 5 different parameters in the second, third, and fourth rank tensors representing electronic conductivity (or static polarizability), the second order nonlinear polarizability, and elastic constants of SWNTs, respectively. The values of elastic constants obtained from tight-binding method imply that SWNTs might be very weakly anisotropic in mechanical properties. The further study on the mechanical properties shows that the elastic shell theory in the macroscopic scale can be applied to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the mesoscopic scale, as a result, SWNTs can be regarded as an isotropic material with Poisson ratio, effective thickness, and Young's modulus being $\nu=0.34$, $h=0.75$\AA, $Y=4.70$TPa, respectively, while the Young's moduli of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) are apparent functions of the number of layers, $N$, varying from 4.70TPa to 1.04TPa for N=1 to $\infty$. Based on the chirality of CNTs, it is predicted that a new kind of molecular motor driven by alternating voltage can be constructed from double walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs).