Dimension, Strength, and Chemical and Thermal Stability of a Single C-C Bond in Carbon Nanotubes

For single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), given the known product of the Young’s modulus Y and the wall (bond) thickness t (Yt = 0.3685 TPa‚nm) and the known temperature of tip-end melting (Tm ) 1593 K), as well as their functional dependence on atomic coordination and bonding energy, the dimension and strength of aC -C bond in a SWCNT have been determined. The uniqueness of the solution reveals that the C-C bond (or the wall of the SWCNT) is 0.142 nm thick and 0.125 nm long (an 18.5% contraction of diamond bond length, 0.154 nm), with a 68% increase in binding energy, with respect to the bulk graphite values. Therefore, the measured Yt and Tm values essentially represent the true SWCNT situation.