title: Why nanotubes grow chiral.
abstract: Carbon nanotubes hold enormous technological promise. It can only be harnessed if one controls their chirality, the feature of the tubular carbon topology that governs all the properties of nanotubes-electronic, optical, mechanical. Experiments in catalytic growth over the last decade have repeatedly revealed a puzzling strong preference towards minimally chiral (near-armchair) tubes, challenging any existing hypotheses and making chirality control ever more tantalizing, yet leaving its understanding elusive. Here we combine the nanotube/catalyst interface thermodynamics with the kinetic growth theory to show that the unusual near-armchair peaks emerge from the two antagonistic trends at the interface: energetic preference towards achiral versus the faster growth kinetics of chiral nanotubes. This narrow distribution is inherently related to the peaked behaviour of a simple function, xe(-x).
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Department of Chemistry, and the Richard Smalley Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA [2].
authors.forename: Vasilii I
authors.initials: VI
authors.lastname: Artyukhov
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Department of Chemistry, and the Richard Smalley Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA [2].
authors.forename: Evgeni S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Penev
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Department of Chemistry, and the Richard Smalley Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Boris I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Yakobson