Buckling instabilities in multiwalled carbon nanotubes under uniaxial compression

We report experimental observations of shell buckling instabilities in freestanding, vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes subjected to uniaxial compression. Highly ordered and uniform arrays of carbon nanotubes embedded in an alumina matrix were fabricated and subjected to uniaxial compression using a nanoindenter. The buckling load was found to be on the order of 2 muN for nanotubes with 25 nm outer radius, 13 nm inner radius, and heights of 50 and 100 nm. Good agreement was found between the experimental observations and the predictions of linear elastic shell buckling theory. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.