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Pseudo-break imaging of carbon nanotubes for determining elastic bending energies

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Abstract

One-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials easily bend due to perturbations from their surroundings or their own behaviors. This phenomenon not only impacts the performances of various devices but has also been employed to develop a variety of new functional devices, in which the bending energies of the nanomaterials determine the device performances. However, measuring the energies of such nanomaterials is extremely difficult. Herein, pseudo-break imaging of 1D nanomaterials has been proposed and realized on individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs), in which a CNT appears to break and has a fracture but is actually intact. This imaging approach provides the values of the bending energies of the CNTs with an accuracy of 1–50 eV. Furthermore, this imaging approach can manipulate the bending shapes and energies of CNTs. This work presents a protocol for bending analysis and manipulation, which are vital to fundamental and applied studies of 1D nanomaterials.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51971157 and 12102307), Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (Nos. JCYJ20210324115412035 and ZDSYS20210813095534001), Tianjin Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 19JCJQJC61800), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province, China (No. 2021CFB138). We thank Mr Xiangqing Wang, Dr. Qibo Deng, Mr. Zuocheng Li, Prof. Jamie H. Warner, Prof. Zhong Jin, Prof. Yan Li, Prof. Li-Min Liu, and Prof. Quanshui Zheng for useful discussion, help, and assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for New Energy Materials and Low-Carbon Technologies and Tianjin Key Lab of Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China

    Changfei Jing

  2. ShenSi Lab, Shenzhen Institute for Advanced Study, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen, 518110, China

    Yongji Qin & Jun Luo

  3. Department of Engineering Mechanics, School of Civil Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Wengen Ouyang

  4. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Wengen Ouyang

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  1. Changfei Jing
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Correspondence to Wengen Ouyang or Jun Luo.

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Jing, C., Qin, Y., Ouyang, W. et al. Pseudo-break imaging of carbon nanotubes for determining elastic bending energies. Nano Res. 16, 7443–7451 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5295-1

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