Large magnetic moment at sheared ends of single-walled carbon nanotubes**Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2018YFA0208403 and 2016YFA0200403), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51472057, 11874129, 91323304, and 11674387), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA09040101), and the Baotou Rare Earth Research

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In this work we report that after single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are sheared with a pair of titanium scissors, the magnetization becomes larger than that of the corresponding pristine ones. The magnetization increases proportionally with the number of SWNTs with sheared ends, suggesting that there exist magnetic moments at the sheared ends of SWNTs. By using the coefficient of this linear relation, the average magnetic moment is estimated to be 41.5 ± 9.8 μB (Bohr magneton) per carbon atom in the edge state at temperature of 300.0 K, suggesting that ultrahigh magnetic fields can be produced. The dangling sigma and pi bonds of the carbon atoms at sheared ends play important roles in determining the unexpectedly high magnetic moments, which may have great potential applications.