Graphene-nanotube structures: Constitution and formation energy

A new class of carbon nanostructures is considered: covalently (or molecularly) bound graphene and carbon nanotube fragments. As found using semiempirical computations and molecular dynamics methods, the structures formed by bonding nanotube edge atoms to a planar segment of a graphene nanofragment or its edge atoms to nanotube atoms arranged at the element of cylinder and graphene nanoribbons attached to a nanotube by van der Waals forces along the nanotube are the most energetically stable systems. © 2009 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.