Effect of Gaseous Dissipation of Oscillating Cantilevered Carbon Nanotubes

We have investigated the damping effects of gas molecules on the vibration of a carbon nanotube cantilever. An optical detection system to detect the vibration in gaseous molecules was built. The energy loss induced by the gas molecules is proportional to a pressure at 10 2 –10 4 Pa. At pressures below 10 Pa, the energy loss is negligible compared with the intrinsic loss of the vibration energy for the nanotube. This is because the size of the nanotube is much smaller than the mean free path of the gas molecules.