Elastic Properties of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

A new and very promising development in the field of materials science is the discovery of carbon nanotubes. Research into these tiny structures is motivated by their unusual and potentially useful properties. Computational values for the Poisson’s ratio seem to agree with experimental data and other computational predictions. However, both experimental and computational research into the Young’s modulus of SWCNT’s has yielded conflicting results. The disagreement over the value of the Young’s modulus stems from the difficulty in defining an area over which the force is applied.