Exploring carbon catenoids and their applications for encapsulation of carbon nanostructures

Abstract

Carbon nanostructures of various shapes are among materials that have been extensively studied due to their unique chemical and physical properties. In this paper, we propose a new geometry of carbon nanostructures known as molecular carbon catenoid to compare with theoretical catenoid found from minimising the Willmore energy functional. Since applications of this structure include electron and molecular transport, this paper mathematically models the energetic behaviour of an atom and a spherical molecule entering a catenoid using the Lennard-Jones potential and a continuum approach. The suction energy is also obtained to determine the size of catenoid suitable for encapsulation of various structures. Results shown for theoretical catenoid using continuum modelling approach are found to be in good agreement with numerical simulations for molecular carbon catenoid.