The discovery of carbon nanotubes and C 60 fullerenes has created an enormous impact on possible new nanomechanical devices. Owing to their unique mechanical and electronic properties, such as low weight, high strength, flexibility and thermal stability, carbon nanotubes and C 60 fullerenes are of considerable interest to researchers from many scientific areas. One aspect that has attracted much attention is the creation of high-frequency nanoscale oscillators, or the so-called gigahertz oscillators, for applications such as ultrafast optical filters and nano-antennae. While there are difficulties for micromechanical oscillators, or resonators, to reach a frequency in the gigahertz range, it is possible for nanomechanical systems to achieve this. This study focuses on C 60 –single-walled carbon nanotube oscillators, which generate high frequencies owing to the oscillatory motion of the C 60 molecule inside the single-walled carbon nanotube. Using the Lennard-Jones potential, the interaction energy of an offset C 60 molecule inside a carbon nanotube is determined, so as to predict its position with reference to the cross-section of the carbon nanotube. By considering the interaction force between the C 60 fullerene and the carbon nanotube, this paper provides a simple mathematical model, involving two Dirac delta functions, which can be used to capture the essential mechanisms underlying such gigahertz oscillators. As a preliminary to the calculation, the oscillatory behaviour of an isolated atom is examined. The new element of this study is the use of elementary mechanics and applied mathematical modelling in a scientific context previously dominated by molecular dynamical simulation.

Owing to their unusual properties, carbon nanostructures such as nanotubes and fullerenes have caused many new nanomechanical devices to be proposed. One such application is that of nanoscale oscillators which operate in the gigahertz range, the so-called gigahertz oscillators. Such devices have potential applications as ultrafast optical filters and nano-antennae. While there are difficulties in producing micromechanical oscillators which operate in the gigahertz range, molecular dynamical simulations indicate that nanoscale devices constructed of multi-walled carbon nanotubes or single-walled carbon nanotubes and C 60 fullerenes could feasibly operate at these high frequencies. This paper investigates the suction force experienced by either an atom or a C 60 fullerene molecule located in the vicinity of an open end of a single-walled carbon nanotube. The atom is modelled as a point mass, the fullerene as an averaged atomic mass distributed over the surface of a sphere. In both cases, the carbon nanotube is modelled as an averaged atomic mass distributed over the surface of an open semi-infinite cylinder. In both cases, the particle being introduced is assumed to be located on the axis of the cylinder. Using the Lennard-Jones potential, the van der Waals interaction force between the atom or C 60 fullerene and the carbon nanotube can be obtained analytically. Furthermore, by integrating the force, an explicit analytic expression for the work done by van der Waals forces is determined and used to derive an acceptance condition, that is whether the particle will be completely sucked into the carbon nanotube by virtue of van der Waals interactions alone, and a suction energy which is imparted to the introduced particle in the form of an increased velocity. The results of the acceptance condition and the calculated suction energy are shown to be in good agreement with the published molecular dynamical simulations. In part II of the paper, a new model is proposed to describe the oscillatory motion adopted by atoms and fullerenes that are sucked into carbon nanotubes.

No abstract

Carbon nanotubes are nanostructures that promise much in the area of constructing nanoscale devices due to their enhanced mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. In this paper, we examine a gigahertz oscillator that comprises a carbon nanotube oscillating in a uniform concentric ring or bundle of carbon nanotubes. A number of existing results for nanotube oscillators are employed to analyse the design considerations of optimizing such a device, and significant new results are also derived. These include a new analytical expression for the interaction per unit length of two parallel carbon nanotubes involving the Appell hypergeometric functions. This expression is employed to precisely determine the relationship between the bundle radius and the radii of the nanotubes forming the bundle. Furthermore, several pragmatic approximations are also given, including the relationships between the bundle radius and the constituent nanotube radius and the oscillating tube radius and the bundle nanotube radius. We also present a simplified analysis of the force and energy for a nanotube oscillating in a nanotube bundle leading to an expression for the oscillating frequency and the maximum oscillating frequency, including constraints on configurations under which this maximum is possible.

No abstract