Radial moduli of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes with and without electric current flow

Although the radial elastic moduli of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were studied by simulation or calculation, no experimental results were presented. The authors have studied the radial deformability of different diameters of SWCNTs with and without current flow using nanoindentation with rigid silicon and diamond tips under atomic force microscopy. The radial elastic moduli of SWCNT deduced by the Hertz model were found to be strongly dependent on the diameter, i.e., SWCNTs with smaller diameter have larger moduli. The radial stiffness was also shown to be larger for a SWCNT with current than that without current.