Solitary Wave in One-dimensional Buckyball System at Nanoscale

We have studied the stress wave propagation in one-dimensional (1-D) nanoscopic buckyball (C60) system by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and quantitative modeling. Simulation results have shown that solitary waves are generated and propagating in the buckyball system through impacting one buckyball at one end of the buckyball chain. We have found the solitary wave behaviors are closely dependent on the initial temperature and impacting speed of the buckyball chain. There are almost no dispersion and dissipation of the solitary waves (stationary solitary wave) for relatively low temperature and high impacting speed. While for relatively high temperature and low impacting speed the profile of the solitary waves is highly distorted and dissipated after propagating several tens of buckyballs. A phase diagram is proposed to describe the effect of the temperature and impacting speed on the solitary wave behaviors in buckyball system. In order to quantitatively describe the wave behavior in buckyball system, a simple nonlinear-spring model is established, which can describe the MD simulation results at low temperature very well. The results presented in this work may lay a solid step towards the further understanding and manipulation of stress wave propagation and impact energy mitigation at nanoscale.