Nanocables made of a transition metal wire and boron nitride sheath: Density functional calculations

The boron nitride (BN) nanotube has a very wide band gap and can shield the nanowire encapsulated inside its cavity from outside interference. Our calculations indicate that transition metal wires can be inserted inside a variety of zigzag BN nanotubes exothermically. In particular a cobalt wire and the BN tube interact just like two giant molecules. The weak interaction between the BN tube and the wire ensures a low binding energy and a high magnetic moment that comes solely from the transition metals. High spin polarization at the Fermi level also indicates that the hybrid structure can be used as a nanocable for spintronic applications