Buckling instabilities in multiwalled carbon nanotubes under uniaxial compression

We report experimental observations of shell buckling instabilities in freestanding, vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes subjected to uniaxial compression. Highly ordered and uniform arrays of carbon nanotubes embedded in an alumina matrix were fabricated and subjected to uniaxial compression using a nanoindenter. The buckling load was found to be on the order of 2μN for nanotubes with 25nm outer radius, 13nm inner radius, and heights of 50 and 100nm. Good agreement was found between the experimental observations and the predictions of linear elastic shell buckling theory.