Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are essentially layers of graphite seamlessly wrapped into cylinders. They have shown great potential in a wide variety of applications. One prospect in bioengineering is to utilize CNTs for drug delivery by forming micelles or vesicles from aligned tubes. These structures would essentially be spherical nanocontainers with short carbon nanotube arrays forming the wall of...

The emergence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) has stimulated considerable interest in investigating their physical and mechanical properties toward the development of potential technological applications. It has been confirmed theoretically and experimentally that nanotubes possess remarkably high stiffness and strength. Carbon nanotubes also have exceptionally high electrical and thermal conductivi...

A structural model of carbon nanocoils (CNCs) on the basis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was proposed. The Young's moduli and spring constants of CNCs were computed and compared with those of CNTs. Upon elongation and compression, CNCs exhibit superelastic properties that are manifested by the nearly invariant average bond lengths and the large maximum elastic strain limit. Analysis of bond angle ...

In this Letter, we perform an experimental study of ionic transport and current fluctuations inside individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The conductance exhibits a power law behavior at low salinity, with an exponent close to 1/3 versus the salt concentration in this regime. This behavior is rationalized in terms of a salinity dependent surface charge, which is accounted for on the basis of a mo...

We exploit a facile strategy for photothermal synthesis (PTS) of CuxO nanoparticles (NPs) on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) suspended in solution, where the pulsed laser can penetrate through the liquid unimpeded and heat the CNTs selectively to a high temperature, thereafter, the hot CNTs trigger the chemical reactions to produce CuxO NPs directly on the CNT surface. PTS yields ultrafine NPs with siz...

Recent conductance measurements on multi-wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) reveal an effective behavior similar to disordered single-wall CNTs. This is due to the fact that electric current flows essentially through the outermost shell and is strongly influenced by inhomogeneous electrostatic potential coming from the inner tubes. Here, we present theoretical studies of spin-dependent transport thro...

Damage to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) during the fabrication process of CNT reinforced composites has great influence on their mechanical properties. In this study, the 2014 Al with powder sizes of 20, 9 and 5 μm was selected to study the effect of initial particle size on the damage to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) during ball milling. The result shows that for CNTs in the ball milled CNT/Al (with powde...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs ) are considered to be one of the novel reinforcement for developing advanced nanocomposites due to their outstanding thermo-mechanical properties. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs ) are developed by arc discharge method. To enhance the dispersion of CNTs in polymer matrix, CNTs are modified with chemical treatment and processed by ultrasonication process. Surface ch...

Previous energetic considerations have led to the belief that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) of 4 A in diameter are the smallest stable CNTs. Using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, we find that a stable 3 A CNT can be grown inside a multiwalled carbon nanotube. Density functional calculations indicate that the 3 A CNT is the armchair CNT(2,2) with a radial breathing mode at 787 cm(-1)...

nanocomposites made of carbon nanotube (cnt) bundles have attracted researchers’ attention due to their unusual properties such as: light weight, flexibility and stiffness.  in this paper, the effects of straight and rope-shaped bundles on nanocomposite effective mechanical properties are investigated.  first, fea models are created consisting of cnts with different shapes of straight and rope-...