The effect of the orientation of the Stone-Wales defects on the bands structure of carbon nanotubes

Abstract

We have studied the effect of orientation of Stone-Wales (SW) defects formed on the armchair single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on their metal-semiconductor behaviour by means of the density functional formalism. It has been shown that two third of possible orientations of SW defects, at high concentrations, open a 40 meV gap at Fermi level while in the other one third orientations tube remains metallic. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.