Structural peculiarities of in situ deformation of a multi-walled BN nanotube inside a high-resolution analytical transmission electron microscope

Multi-cycle bending deformation of an individual boron nitride (BN) nanotube is performed inside a 300 kV high-resolution analytical transmission electron microscope (TEM) using a piezo-driven scanning tunneling microscope (STM)–TEM holder. Phenomenological peculiarities of the deformation are recorded under the detailed control of nanotube morphology, atomic structure, chemistry and electrical transport during all stages of deformation. Interestingly, it is found that the nanotube layers are very flexible in the vicinity of a relatively rigid nanotube fragment filled with BN matter and may withstand 20 or even more reverse bending cycles. At the same time, the filled part is gradually graphitized such that the normal to the BN graphitic layers is perpendicular to both the nanotube axis and the bending axis.