Correlated breakdown of carbon nanotubes in an ultra-high density aligned array

TL;DR

This paper reveals that in densely packed aligned carbon nanotube arrays, the breakdown of one nanotube causes a correlated failure of neighboring nanotubes through electrostatic and thermal effects, resembling a solid-like behavior.

Contribution

It uncovers the mechanism of correlated breakdown in aligned nanotube arrays driven by electrostatic and Joule heating effects, highlighting their solid-like collective failure behavior.

Findings

Breakdown of one nanotube triggers neighboring failures.

Electrostatic fields cause inhomogeneous heating leading to breakdown.

Aligned arrays behave like a correlated solid.

Abstract

We demonstrate that in a densely packed aligned array of single walled carbon nanotubes, the breakdown of one nanotube leads to a highly correlated breakdown of neighboring nanotubes, thereby producing a nano-fissure. We show that the origin of the correlation is the electrostatic field of the broken nanotubes that produces locally inhomogeneous current and Joule heating distributions in the neighboring intact nanotubes triggering their breakdowns in the vicinity of the broken nanotubes. Our results suggest that the densely aligned array behaves like a correlated solid.