Composition-dependent buckling behaviour of hybrid boron nitride–carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The buckling of hybrid boron nitride–carbon nanotubes (BN–CNTs) with various BN compositions and locations of the BN domain is investigated using molecular dynamics. We find that BN–CNTs with large BN composition (>38%) only undergo local shell-like buckling in their BN domain. Although similar local shell-like buckling can occur in BN–CNTs with a relatively small BN composition, it can transfer to the global column-like buckling of the whole BN–CNT with increasing strains. The critical strains for local shell-like and global column-like buckling decrease with increasing BN composition. In addition, critical strains and buckling modes of the global column-like buckling of BN–CNTs also strongly depend on the location of their BN domain. As a possible application of the buckling of BN–CNTs, we demonstrate that the BN–CNT can serve as a water channel integrated with a local natural valve using the local buckling of its BN domain.