Disordered hyperuniform quasi-one-dimensional materials

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes are quasi-one-dimensional systems that possess large electronic conductance (for the metallic variants), high mechanical strength, selective emission and detection of light, and can be made chemically functionalized. In this work, we generalize the notion of disorder hyperuniformity, a recently discovered exotic state of matter with hidden long-range order, to quasi-one-dimensional materials. As a proof of concept, we then apply the generalized framework to quantify the density fluctuations in amorphous carbon nanotubes containing randomly distributed Stone-Wales defects. We demonstrate that all of these amorphous nanotubes are hyperuniform; i.e., the infinite-wavelength (normalized) density fluctuations of these systems are completely suppressed, regardless of the diameter, rolling axis, number of rolling sheets, and defect fraction of the nanotubes. We find that these amorphous nanotubes are energetically more stable than nanotubes with periodically distributed Stone-Wales defects. Moreover, certain semiconducting defect-free carbon nanotubes become metallic as sufficiently large amounts of defects are randomly introduced. This structural study of amorphous nanotubes strengthens our fundamental understanding of these systems, and suggests possible exotic physical properties, as endowed by their disordered hyperuniformity. Our findings also shed light on the effect of dimensionality reduction on the hyperuniformity property of materials.