Diverse corrugation pattern in radially shrinking carbon nanotubes

Stable cross sections of multiwalled carbon nanotubes subjected to electron-beam irradiation are investigated in the realm of the continuum mechanics approximation. The self-healing nature of sp² graphitic sheets implies that selective irradiation of the outermost walls causes their radial shrinkage with the remaining inner walls undamaged. The shrinking walls exert high pressure on the interior part of nanotubes, yielding a wide variety of radial-corrugation patterns (i.e., circumferentially wrinkling structures) in the cross section. All corrugation patterns can be classified into two deformation phases for which the corrugation amplitudes of the innermost wall differ significantly.