Creating carbon nanotubes is a common task in nanoscale design. Despite being conceptually simple, the manual construction of these tube-like structures with regular periodicity, seamless curvature, and proper bonding alignment can be time-consuming and technically tricky — particularly when high positional precision and atom merging are needed.
Fortunately, SAMSON includes a set of interactive Pattern Editors that make nanotube modeling accessible, visual, and fast. This post walks you through building a nanotube from scratch using just the Linear and Circular Pattern Editors. No scripting or coding is required — just geometry and a few clicks.
What you’ll build
You’ll begin by constructing a single carbon ring, turn that into a circular pattern to form one layer, and then stack it to generate the full nanotube. The entire structure is assembled interactively using on-screen drag handles and numeric inputs, producing a physically plausible model that you can further refine or simulate.
Step 1: Start from a ring
Use SAMSON’s editors to build a ring of carbon atoms. Once you’ve created the initial ring (e.g., a hexagonal one), remove extra hydrogens and rotate the ring so that straight edges match the XY plane. This will help align copies more easily in later steps.
Step 2: Make it circular
Use the Circular Pattern Editor (shortcut key W) to replicate the ring in a circular layout, creating the base loop of your nanotube. You’ll see transformation handles around the original structure:
- Increase the instance count (e.g., 12 copies) to complete a ring.
- Use the radius slider or precise input (Ctrl + click) to align ends of adjacent units properly.
- Once satisfied, click Accept to finalize and merge overlapping atoms if needed.
Step 3: Stack into a tube
Activate the Linear Pattern Editor (shortcut key L) to stack the ring created in the previous step along the Z-axis. This replicates the ring and extends your system upward into a tube:
- Use the transform widget to translate new instances along Z (e.g., 2 Å between layers).
- If needed for proper bonding, apply a small rotation per stack (e.g., 30°).
- Accept the pattern when done to finalize the nanotube shape.
Step 4: Final touches
You can now optionally minimize the geometry using SAMSON’s energy minimization tools to relax bond angles and positions. If you’re preparing the model for use in simulations, don’t forget to validate bonding and add hydrogens where needed.
A visual overview
Creating nanotubes manually might once have seemed daunting, but with SAMSON’s Pattern Editors, it’s a visual and reproducible process. You directly control transformations and replication steps, making it easy to test design variants quickly — for example, adjusting curvature or wall thickness by changing ring size and count.
To learn more patterns and advanced features available in SAMSON, and to explore how to build other nanoscale architectures, visit the full documentation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/creating-patterns/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.