A comprehensive study on the oscillation frequency of spherical fullerenes in carbon nanotubes under different system parameters

Amongst possible new nanomechanical devices created based on carbon nanostructures, high-frequency nanoscale oscillators, or the so-called gigahertz oscillators have attracted much attention. In this paper, the oscillatory behavior of spherical fullerenes inside carbon nanotubes is thoroughly investigated. To this end, the continuum approximation together with Lennard-Jones potential is used to evaluate the van der Waals potential energy and interaction force. The equation of motion is directly solved based on the actual force distribution between the two nanostructures, without any simplifying assumption. A semi-analytical expression is obtained for the oscillation frequency into which the effect of initial conditions is incorporated. Thereafter, this newly derived expression is utilized in order to present a comprehensive study on the effects of different system variables such as geometrical parameters and initial conditions on the oscillation frequency. Based upon these studies, some new features of such oscillations have been revealed. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.