Beat vibration of hybrid boron nitride-carbon nanotubes - A new avenue to atomic-scale mass sensing

J Zhang and CY Wang, COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE, 127, 270-276 (2017).

DOI: 10.1016/j.commatsci.2016.11.014

In this paper a beat phenomenon is reported in molecular dynamics simulations for vibrating boron nitride-carbon nanotubes (BN-CNTs) and then analysed based on a continuum mechanics theory. It was shown that the distinctive dynamic behaviour is a result of the superposition of two orthogonal transverse vibrations whose frequencies are slightly different due to the oval cross-section of the hybrid nanotubes. In particular, the interaction between the two vibrations in BN-CNTs will facilitate to resolve the fundamental issue in developing mass nanosensors for atomic-scale mass measuring. To reach this goal, efforts should be made to maintain high quality factor of the BN-CNT oscillating system by minimising the damping effect of its surrounding environment. This issue turns out to be essential for the beat mode-based nanosensors as large damping will reduce the hybrid nanotubes to conventional resonators with only one transverse vibration same as that reported for homogeneous nanotubes. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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