Plastic deformations of carbon nanotubes

Although the elastic properties of a carbon nanotube are nearly independent of wrapping indices, we show that the onset of plastic deformation depends very strongly on the wrapping index. An (n,0) nanotube has an elastic limit nearly twice that of an (n,n) tube with the same radius. Such great variation has important consequences for structural applications of carbon nanotubes. In addition, the remnant bond rotations remaining after strain release strongly affect the electronic structure of the distorted nanotube.