Electrostatic charge distribution on single-walled carbon nanotubes

This letter reports a study of charge distribution on single-walled carbon nanotubes. An atomistic moment method is proposed based on classical electrostatics theory and the results of analysis are compared with those obtained from ab initio approach. It is shown that the classical electrostatics is applicable to solving electric problems of nanostructures and the present method is computationally efficient. The effect of tube length, tube diameter, and tube position on nanotube electrostatic charge distributions has also been examined. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.