Charge distribution on thin conducting nanotubes - reduced 3-D model

The subject of this paper is the calculation of charge distribution on the surfaces of thin conducting nanotubes in electrostatic problems, by the boundary element method (BEM). A line model of a nanotube is proposed here. This model overcomes the problem of dealing with nearly singular matrices that occur when the standard BEM is applied to very thin features (objects or gaps). This new approach is also very efficient. Numerical results are presented for selected examples. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd