Carbon nanotubes—II. Cohesion and formation energy of cylindrical nanotubes Original Research Article

A (6, 12) Lennard-Jones formulation is used to evaluate the enthalpy of formation of multilayered coaxial or scroll-like carbon nanotubes. The role of various parameters—such as interlayer spacing, value of the innermost radius, number of layers—is examined. Most of the nanotubes examined turn out to be metastable, with a small but positive heat of formation.