Mechanics of atoms and fullerenes in single-walled carbon nanotubes. I. Acceptance and suction energies

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 nanoantennae. 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.