Determination of the bending modulus of an individual multiwall carbon nanotube using an electric harmonic detection of resonance technique.

We report a new method of measuring the amplitude and phase of oscillations of individual multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs). As in many other experiments, we excite the oscillations electrostatically, but we show that we can detect the amplitude and phase of the resulting oscillation electrically. As an example, we present measurements of the fundamental and first two overtones of the diving board resonance of a MWNT at 0.339, 2.42, and 5.31 MHz in ambient conditions. The corresponding quality factors were 67, 36, and 25.