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358 J. Bemholc et al.
on the tube via, e.g., AFM tip manipulations, and we show that such procedures can
lead to intratube device formation. The defects and the index changes occumng during
the mechanical transformations also affect the electrical properties of nanotubes. The
computed quantum conductances of strained defective and deformed tubes show that the
defect density and the contacts play key roles in reducing the conductance at the Fermi
energy. The role of bending in changing the electrical properties was also explored. It
was found that mechanical deformations do not significantly affect the conductance of
bent armchair nanotubes up to substantial bending angles, while a conductivity gap is
induced by the bending of chiral nanotubes. These results are in good agreement with
recent experimental data.

Keywords

Carbon nanotube; Molecular dynamics; Tensile strength; Plasticity; Adatoms; De-
fects; Electron transport