Energies of sp2 carbon shapes with pentagonal disclinations and elasticity theory

Abstract

Energies of a certain class of fullerene molecules (elongated, contracted, and regular icosahedral fullerenes) are numerically calculated using a microscopic description of carbon-carbon bonding. It is shown how these results can be interpreted and comprehended using the theory of elasticity that describes bending of a graphene plane. Detailed studies of a wide variety of structures constructed by application of the same general principle are performed, and analytical expressions for energies of such structures are derived. Comparison of numerical results with the predictions of a simple implementation of elasticity theory confirms the usefulness of the latter approach.

A version published in Nanotechnology

References in corpus (1)

• Virus shapes and buckling transitions in spherical shells

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Shapes and energies of icosahedral fullerenes: Onset of ridge sharpening transition
• Continuum and all-atom description of the energetics of graphene nanocones