Structural Restrictions and Inorganic Nanotubular Growth

TL;DR

This paper explores the crystallographic principles governing the growth of inorganic nanotubes with thicker walls, highlighting conditions that lead to large diameters or the formation of new bulk structures.

Contribution

It establishes fundamental crystallographic constraints on the growth of multi-layered inorganic nanotubes with thicker walls.

Findings

Thicker-walled nanotubes require specific crystallographic conditions.

Large diameter nanotubes are favored when wall thickness is significant.

Alternative structures form when growth conditions are not met.

Abstract

It is shown that nanotubes with thicker walls can be grown from strongly bonded multi-layered structures only in accord with some basic crystallographic principles. Either the diameters of such tubes remain large in comparison with the thicknesses of their walls, or new bulk structures are formed.