Artyukhov, Vasilii I.Liu, MingjiePenev, Evgeni S.Yakobson, Boris I.2017-08-112017-08-112017Artyukhov, Vasilii I., Liu, Mingjie, Penev, Evgeni S., et al.. "A jellium model of a catalyst particle in carbon nanotube growth." <i>The Journal of Chemical Physics,</i> 146, no. 24 (2017) AIP Publishing: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4986949.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96653We show how a jellium model can represent a catalyst particle within the density-functional theory based approaches to the growth mechanism of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The advantage of jellium is an abridged, less computationally taxing description of the multi-atom metal particle, while at the same time in avoiding the uncertainty of selecting a particular atomic geometry of either a solid or ever-changing liquid catalyst particle. A careful choice of jellium sphere size and its electron density as a descriptive parameter allows one to calculate the CNT–metal interface energies close to explicit full atomistic models. Further, we show that using jellium permits computing and comparing the formation of topological defects (sole pentagons or heptagons, the culprits of growth termination) as well as pentagon–heptagon pairs 5|7 (known as chirality-switching dislocation).engArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.Journal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4986949