Radial stability and configuration transition of carbon nanotubes regulated by enclosed cores

YG Zheng and HT He and HF Ye, AIP ADVANCES, 5, 057155 (2015).

DOI: 10.1063/1.4921889

The radial stability and configuration transition of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with enclosed cores have been studied in this paper by using atomistic simulations. We found that an abnormal transition of CNTs from open to collapse can be regulated by enclosing deformable and rigid cores. The energy barrier for the configuration transition can be reduced by nearly one order of magnitude due to the presence of these cores, i.e., from similar to 0.3 eV/angstrom to similar to 0.03 eV/angstrom. These findings may provide guidance for the design of controllable CNT-based carrier systems for the delivery of drug, gene and fluid. (C) 2015 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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