Dr. Zejian Liua
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
Curriculum in Applied and Materials Sciences
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255, USA

Structure determination of carbon nanotubes by helical electron diffraction

Abstract
Electron diffraction technique is a powerful tool in revealing the atomic structure of carbon nanotubes which dictates their chemical and physical properties. Based on helical electron diffraction theory, we have developed a systematic procedure to accurately and rapidly determine the chiral indices (u,v) of carbon nanotubes and thereby their electronic properties such as being metallic or semiconducting are readily obtained. Some selected examples determining the atomic structure of both single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes will be presented to demonstrate the applications of this method.