Sunday, May 6, 2007

Helically Coiled Carbon Nanotube with large pitch angle and groove width


I made this helicoid today. This one has pretty large pitch angle and smaller girth width. The motivation for this structure is from T240 carbon innertube, i.e. compound IV1. This helicoid has the same inner-rim structure as that of carbon innertube, T240, I made before. The arrangement of pentagon in the outer region still some relationship to T240/IV1. It is the simplest possible combination that can lead to a helical structure I can think of. The groove of this helicoid is very large comparing with previous helicoid. In fact, it is possible to put the second helicoid with the same structure to create a double stranded helically coiled carbon nanotube. The number of units in a pitch seems to be smaller, only about 4 unit cells. Of course, I am not exactly sure whether the simulation based on more sophisticated force-field will produce the same result or not. I suspect the deviation will be small.

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