A study on nanotube-substrate interaction effect for fullerene-shuttle-memory based on nanopeapod

We investigated the van der Waals (vdW) interaction effect between the carbon nanotube (CNT) and the substrate for the fullerene-shuttle device based on nanopeapod using the atomistic simulations. For the fullerene-shuttle memory devices, the vdW interactions between the CNT and the substrate made the compressive deformations of the CNT; then, affected the speed of their operations. As the vdW interaction increased, the CNT was compressed, the positions of the C60 fullerenes were confined between both the compressed CNT regions; and then, the peapod regions were exactly distinguished from the nanotube regions. The compressions of the peapod regions were smaller than those in the nanotube region because of the vdW interactions between the C60 fullerenes and the CNT. The C60 migrations found in our molecular dynamics simulations were the rolling mode in the CNT. As the vdW interactions increased, although the C60 fullerene was accelerated in the short region, the C60 fullerene was blocked by the compressed CNT regions; then, the C60 fullerene was moved back against the direction of the externally applied force.