Formation of core-shell structure from carbon nanotube and silver nanowire

In recent year, carbon materials have attracted an intensive interest for scientists to propel the development of nanotechnology. In this manuscript, using forced-field-based molecular dynamics simulations, the interaction between the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and silver (Ag) nanowires (NWs) has been investigated. The results show that the Ag NW can induce the self-assembly of the CNTs to form a shell-core structure, and the van der Waals interaction and the offset face-to-face π-π stacking interaction play an important role in this process. Furthermore, the size (diameter) of the CNTs should meet some required conditions to guarantee the shell-core configuration and different surface of Ag NWs exhibits different result. Moreover, different metal nanowires were also discussed.