Unwinding of a carbon nanoscroll due to high speed rotation

A carbon nanoscroll (CNS) can be formed easily by rolling a graphene sheet around a carbon nanotube (CNT) [Zhang and Li, 2010, APL, 97, 081909]. When the CNS is driven by the rotary CNT to rotate at a high speed, the attractive interaction within the CNS or between the CNS and CNT is crippled by the centrifugal force on the CNS. The unwinding of CNS is triggered when the kinetic energy increment approaches to the variation of interaction energy of the system during CNS formation. Numerical experiments also indicate that the unwinding of CNS happens earlier when the CNT has a higher rotational speed or the system is at a higher temperature.