Premium
Controlled Growth of Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotube Networks by Catalyst Interfacial Diffusion
Author(s) -
Yick S.,
Han Z. J.,
Ostrikov K.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
advanced materials interfaces
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.671
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 2196-7350
DOI - 10.1002/admi.201300151
Subject(s) - materials science , carbon nanotube , catalysis , diffusion , nanotechnology , nanotube , controllability , chirality (physics) , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , chemistry , physics , mathematics , chiral symmetry breaking , quantum mechanics , quark , nambu–jona lasinio model , engineering , thermodynamics
Single‐walled carbon nanotubes are promising for many applications due to their unique mechanical, electrical and optical properties. However, their application has been hampered so far by the lack of controllability in the direct growth process, in particular the size and chirality distributions which inevitably lead to a large variability of their electronic structures. Here we demonstrate the effect of catalyst interfacial diffusion using a tri‐layered Al 2 O 3 /Fe(Mo)/Al 2 O 3 catalyst and achieve the effective control of density, diameter, and conductivity of the as‐grown nanotube networks. This method modulates the thickness of the top Al 2 O 3 layer which affects the diffusion of Fe atoms and subsequently the formation of catalyst nanoparticles. We show that the tri‐layered catalyst allows one to vary the density of networks from 0.18 to 35 tubes/μm 2 , the diameter from 1.36 to 1.72 nm, and the metallic fraction from 20% to 45%. It may thus represent a promising strategy for tailoring the properties of as‐grown carbon nanotube networks for their proposed applications.