How evaporating carbon nanotubes retain their perfection?

Ding, Feng; Jiao, Kun; Lin, Yu; Yakobson, Boris I · Nano Lett · 2007

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We present a mechanism of high-temperature sublimation of carbon nanotubes that does not destroy their ordered makeup even upon significant loss of mass. The atoms depart to the gas phase from the pentagon-heptagon dislocation cores, while the bond disruption is immediately repaired, and the 5|7 seamlessly propagate through the lattice. This explains a broad class of unsettled phenomena when at high temperature or under radiation the nanotubes do not become amorphous but rather shrink in size nearly flawlessly.