Possibility of improving oscillation performance of double-walled nanotube oscillators via tuning vacancy defects

The oscillatory behaviors of an oscillator made from double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) with vacancy defects were systematically investigated via molecular dynamics simulation method. We found that the vacancy defects change the off-axial rocking motion and the van der Waals potential, resulting in more energy dissipation. Unlike the case in the C60-nanotube oscillators (Song, et al., Phys. Lett. A. 373 2009, 1058-1061) that one vacancy can make the oscillators more stable, our study showed that the vacancies cannot improve the performance of DWCNT-based oscillators no matter where vacancy defects are located.