Computational Physics of Carbon Nanotubes, by H. Rafii-Tabar
Computational Physics of Carbon Nanotubes, by H. Rafii-Tabar, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, xi + 493 pp., £70.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 521 85300 2. Scope: introduction/reference. Level: researchers and postgraduate.
Most readers will be aware of the recent explosion of interest in carbon nanostructures, both for pure science and their technological applications. For at least the last 10 years, carbon nanotubes have been the focus of much of this activity, although recently the interest has switched to graphene. It would therefore seem timely to take stock of the current state of knowledge of carbon nanotubes. That would be a huge undertaking, as there is much to cover, and so this text takes a narrower view, that of the computational aspect of this research.
This is a welcome approach, as many reviews focus on the experimental enquiries and/or technological applications, and yet computational studies have played a significant role in the development of our understanding of nanotubes. Perhaps because of a coincidence of timing (the availability of sufficient computer hardware and software and the right size of problem to study) it might even be said that the study of nanotubes has been uniquely influenced by computational physics.
Hence, I was keen to review this book – how well would a single author cope with writing about such a large and diverse field? The answer is: amazingly well. I have been singularly impressed by the breadth of topics encompassed in this book, and by the depth at which they are covered.
The first thing to say, is that the book divides neatly into two halves. The first part deals with all the background theory and the second with example applications, with a reasonable length balance in both.
The author starts gently, by describing the different forms of carbon (diamond, graphite, fullerene and nanotubes) before going into more detail on the structure of single- and multi-walled nanotubes, horns and ropes. After a very thorough yet concise coverage of the basics of MD and MC, he then goes into the nitty-gritty of such calculations – the interatomic potentials and forcefields used. As well as linking to the primary literature, there are also very useful summaries of the key parameters and key features of many widely used forms – which is a very useful contribution to the field on its own – and the reader is left with a clear picture of which potential/forcefield is appropriate to use when. There is also a brief summary of ab initio methods. This is then followed by a chapter on classical elasticity theory, including recent developments in the theory of curved plates and thin shells, and application to bending, buckling, vibration, etc. The final part of the theory section is the calculation of mechanical and thermal properties from atomistic calculations. All in all, this is a very thorough review of a diverse field and successfully pulls together both quantum and classical, continuum and atomistic methods. For any practitioner of computational physics, this is very useful, and for anyone starting to work with carbon-based systems this is invaluable. For me, this first part alone would be a useful text.
The second part then builds upon the first, by reviewing the huge amount of published computational research on carbon nanotubes. The information is helpfully grouped into separate chapters, each dealing with a different realm of study. The first such topic is fluid flow in/around nanotubes, of which I knew little beforehand. The next topic is of widespread contemporary interest – the absorption of gas (particularly hydrogen) in and around nanotubes. This is a ‘hot topic’ – particularly for the automotive industry – and has seen much activity over the last 10 years. The author summarises many diverse computer experiments and the reader is left with a clear picture of what has been done, to what level of detail, and what questions remain to be satisfactorily answered. I found this to be one of the most exciting parts of the whole book, and worthy of publication as a stand-alone scholarly review article! This was then followed by equally thorough reviews of calculations of mechanical and thermal properties of nanotubes.
Finally, there is a reasonably thorough (343) set of references and a useful index which makes it possible to pick up and use this text without delving through extraneous material.
In summary, I was very impressed by this book. The author has done an admirable job in coherently synthesising a huge amount of primary literature, and producing a stand-alone textbook that serves as a very useful introduction to a fascinating topic. I heartily recommend this book to anyone starting out on computational studies of carbon nanotubes. It also serves as a very useful summary of the current state-of-knowledge of this important topic, and will be useful to ‘old hands’ in the field as well – particularly for the many who will not have been able to keep up with all the developments in subfields away from their own primary interest.
© 2010, Matt Probert