Stability and chirality effect on twist formation of collapsed double wall carbon nanotubes

This study is to reveal the effect of interlayer lattice registry on the formation of collapsed double wall carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs). It is found that collapsed carbon nanotubes can be energetically unstable,metastable or stable,depending mainly on the diameter of the CNT. A fully collapsed DWCNT can adopt different structural morphologies,such as a straight ribbon,a warping ribbon or a twisted ribbon,depending on the chirality of the CNT,which is similar to single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Different from SWCNTs,this study also shows some unique phenomena in the formation of collapsed DWCNTs. A fully collapsed DWCNT can have different combinations of the interlayer lattice registry effect within the inner and outer tube,thus the outer tube can influence the formation of the collapsed CNT via lattice registry effect,sometimes even dominates the twist of the CNT.