Theoretical Study on Structural and Elastic Properties of ZnO Nanotubes

A theoretical investigation on the structural and elastic properties of ZnO nanotubes is carried out by using atomistic calculations based on an inter-atomic pair potential within the shell-model approach. The calculation results are presented for the bond length, bond angle, radius dilation, strain energy, Young modulus and Poisson ratio as a function of tube radius. For small tube radius these properties depend on the helicity of the tube, while for the tube radius larger than 6.0AA, they are independent of the tube radius and helicity except for the strain energy which decreases with increasing tube radius.