Nuclear point mass effects in the interaction of energetic ion with carbon nanotubes

Abstract

We have calculated deposited energies of various energetic ions in carbon nanotubes, to study nuclear point mass effects, with the help of a static Monte Carlo (MC) simulation program. As a result of nuclear point mass effects, we show that at the same incident energy, the ion-deposited energy maximizes, while its mass has intermediate mass values, such as 11B, 12C and 14N ion masses, under hundreds keV 4He, 11B, 12C, 14N, 20Ne, 28Si and 40Ar ion irradiations of a thin-walled carbon nanotube. We also show that at the same incident energy, the coordination defect number maximizes, while its mass has an intermediate mass (20Ne) value, under hundreds keV 4He, 20Ne and 40Ar ion irradiations of the thin-walled nanotube. We derive an ion-deposited energy formula to analyze these maximum phenomena, and compare the MC simulation results with the MD (molecular dynamics) ones.