Quantum-mechanical understanding on structure dependence of image potentials of single-walled boron nitride nanotubes

Abstract The recent discovery of field emission devices based on one-dimensional nanostructures has attracted much interest in emerging applications on next-generation flat panel displays, molecule-based sensors, and so forth. To achieve a comprehensive understanding of surface potentials at the nano-emitters during the tunneling process, in this study we systematically investigated the image potentials of single-walled boron nitride nanotubes with different edges, diameters and lengths in the frame of a composite first-principles calculation. The image potentials of zigzag single-walled boron nitride nanotubes are found to be dependent on the non-equivalent sides. Only the image potentials of isolated armchair single-walled boron nitride nanotube can be well fitted with the image potential of an ideal metal sphere of a size comparable to the tube diameter. On the contrary, the image potentials of zigzag and grounded armchair single-walled boron nitride nanotubes exhibit a strong length-dependence characteristic and are significantly different from that of an ideal metal sphere, which originates from the significant axial symmetry breaking of induced charge at the tip for the long tube. The correlation between the testing electron and electronic structure of single-walled boron nitride nanotube has also been discussed.