Morphology dependence of radial elasticity in multiwalled boron nitride nanotubes

TL;DR

This study measures the radial elasticity of multiwalled boron nitride nanotubes, revealing that their morphology, especially external and internal radii, significantly influences their stiffness, with larger radii approaching bulk material properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the dependence of radial elasticity on nanotube morphology, highlighting the dominant role of radii over thickness in determining stiffness.

Findings

Radial modulus increases with nanotube size.

Radial modulus approaches bulk hexagonal-Boron Nitride values.

Morphology significantly influences nanotube radial stiffness.

Abstract

We report on the measurement of the effective radial modulus of multiwalled Boron Nitride nanotubes with external radii in the range 3.7 to 36 nm and number of layers in between 5 and 48. These Boron Nitride nanotubes are radially much stiffer than previously reported thinner and smaller Boron Nitride nanotubes. Here, we show the key role of the morphology of the nanotubes in determining their radial rigidity, in particular we find that the external and internal radii, R_ext and R_int, have a stronger influence on the radial modulus than the NT's thickness, t. We find that the effective radial modulus decreases nonlinearly with 1/R_ext until reaching, for a large number of layers and a large radius, the transverse elastic modulus of bulk hexagonal-Boron Nitride.