title: Ion-nanotube terahertz oscillator.
abstract: We report the intriguing dynamics of a potassium ion interacting with a 16 A carbon nanotube. The ion induces a strong dielectric response in the nanotube wall that can be described through a self-consistent tight-binding method. The polarization of the nanotube was found to play a critical role in the ion-nanotube interaction, which exhibits a low access barrier of only 1.05 kcal/mol and a deep, attractive well with a depth of about 30 kcal/mol. An ion bound in the nanotube is predicted to oscillate at a frequency of about 0.4 terahertz, dragging the electrons of the nanotube along. Besides its appealing nature in low-dimensional physics, such a nano-oscillator may serve as a room temperature terahertz wave detector.
authors.affiliation: Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 405 North Mathews, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Deyu
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Umberto
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Ravaioli
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schulten
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D002244:Carbon; D004563:Electrochemistry; D004735:Energy Transfer; D043942:Nanotubes; D010316:Particle Size; D011188:Potassium / Q000737:chemistry*; D011789:Quantum Theory
chemical_list: D002244:Carbon; D011188:Potassium