Study on compressive buckling behavior of carbon intramolecular junctions

Carbon intramolecular junctions(IMJs) are formed by two arbitrary carbon nanotubes(CNTs).They can act be used in nano-scale electronics circuits and devices.This paper investigates buckling behaviors of IMJs undergoing large compressive deformation by using the molecular dynamics(MD) simulations.It is revealed from the MD results that the critical compressive strain is not affected by the strain rate of relatively low range, but it is sensitive to the strain rate under high speed compression.This finding provides a useful guidance for choosing a appropriate loading rate in the MD simulations.Finite element analysis is also employed to investigate the buckling behavior of IMJs under axial compression.The results obtained by the MD simulations and the finite element analyses agree well.It is thus confirmed the finite element analysis can be used to perform compressive buckling analysis of IMJs at a relatively low cost.