Tensile Deformation of Tubular Structures of Nitride-based Nanotubes: Brittle and Weak Behavior

This study adopts classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulation with the realistic Tersoff many-body potential model to investigate the mechanical properties of gallium nitride (GaN) nanotubes. The investigation focuses primarily on the mechanical properties of (n, 0) and (n, n) GaN nanotubes since these particular nanotubes represent two extreme cases. The present results indicate that under small strain conditions, the mechanical properties such as Young’s modulus are insensitive to the wrapping angle. Conversely, the wrapping angle has a significant influence upon these mechanical properties under large strain conditions. It is demonstrated that (9, 0) GaN nanotubes are far less resistant to bond rotation. Under large tensile strain conditions, due to the unfavorable bond orientations induced by Stone-Wales (S-W) transformation, the bonds in (n, 0) GaN tubes quickly degenerate