A jellium model of a catalyst particle in carbon nanotube growth
Abstract
We show how a jellium model can represent a catalyst particle within the density-functional theory based approaches to the growth mechanism of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The advantage of jellium is an abridged, less computationally taxing description of the multi-atom metal particle, while at the same time in avoiding the uncertainty of selecting a particular atomic geometry of either a solid or ever-changing liquid catalyst particle. A careful choice of jellium sphere size and its electron density as a descriptive parameter allows one to calculate the CNT–metal interface energies close to explicit full atomistic models. Further, we show that using jellium permits computing and comparing the formation of topological defects (sole pentagons or heptagons, the culprits of growth termination) as well as pentagon–heptagon pairs 5|7 (known as chirality-switching dislocation).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 23, 2017
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.4986949
Entities
People
- Boris I Yakobson
- Evgeni S Penev
- Mingjie Liu
- Vasilii I Artyukhov
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Rice University