APS » PROLA » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 82 » Issue 2

Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 343 - 346 (1999)

Mechanical Energy Storage in Carbon Nanotube Springs
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S. A. Chesnokov and V. A. Nalimova *
Department of Chemistry and Physics of High Pressures, Moscow State University, Moscow 119899, Russia

A. G. Rinzler and R. E. Smalley
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice Quantum Institute and Departments of Chemistry and Physics, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77251

J. E. Fischer
Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

Received 8 December 1997; revised 9 June 1998

Compression of purified, unoriented, highly crystalline single-wall carbon nanotube material reveals an exceptionally large and reversible volume reduction. Density increases rapidly with increasing pressure, approaching that of graphite, and recovers completely upon pressure release. The reversible work done in compressing to 29 kbar is 0.18 eV/C atom. We attribute this effect to crushing, or flattening the tube cross section from circular to elliptical.


©1999 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v82/p343
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.343
PACS: 61.46.+w, 62.50.+p

* Deceased.

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