Alkane Encapsulation Induces Strain in Small Diameter Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Published

May 4, 2018

Author(s)

Jason K. Streit, Jochen I. Campo, Chad R. Snyder, Ming Zheng, Jeffrey R. Simpson, Angela R. Hight Walker, Jeffrey Fagan

Abstract

Encapsulation of linear alkane molecules in the endohedral volumes of small diameter single- wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is shown to induce diameter dependent strain on the hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms composing the tubular structure. For the smallest diameter nanotubes, such as the (6,5), (9,1), (8,3) and (10,0), encapsulation leads to expansive radial strain. This effect is demonstrated through precision measurements of induced shifts in the energy of the intrinsic optical transitions of single-chirality nanotube populations. The effect on the optical transitions from strain is found to exceed that of the effective dielectric medium change when comparing the same SWCNT population filled with an alkane versus those filled with water. This differs from encapsulation of alkanes into larger diameter nanotubes for which dielectric effects dominate due to the relative sizes of the guest molecules and the SWCNT cavity. For the SWCNT species examined in this work, the interior cavity diameters are smaller than the smallest unstrained cross-section of an alkane molecule. These results imply that SWCNT species-dependent strain is likely to be encountered when encapsulating any molecule into a SWCNT, with particular complexity to be expected for filling by molecules close to the sieving size of the endohedral cavity.

Citation

Journal of Physical Chemistry C

Volume

122

Issue

21

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b03166

Local Download

Keywords

nanotube, strain, nanomaterial, SWCNT, SWNT

Citation

Streit, J. , Campo, J. , Snyder, C. , Zheng, M. , Simpson, J. , Hight Walker, A. and Fagan, J. (2018), Alkane Encapsulation Induces Strain in Small Diameter Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes, Journal of Physical Chemistry C, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b03166, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=925453 (Accessed October 9, 2025)