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Sub‐nanometer thin single walled carbon nanotubes: Nitrogen does the trick
Author(s) -
Kramberger Christian,
Thurakitseree Therapool,
Maruyama Shigeo
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.201200112
Subject(s) - carbon nanotube , acetonitrile , materials science , nanometre , nanotube , chemical vapor deposition , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , carbon fibers , raw material , carbon nanotube supported catalyst , composite material , organic chemistry , chemistry , carbon nanofiber , composite number , engineering
The mean diameter of single wall carbon nanotubes grown by chemical vapor deposition is demonstrated to be strongly affected by the relative concentrations of ethanol and acetonitrile in the liquid feedstock. We employ zeolite supported catalyst material which yields ∼1 nm thin nanotubes with pure ethanol. By adding acetonitrile the nanotube diameters can be reduced to ∼0.85 nm. The latter empirical lower bound points at the maximum curvature at which a free nanotube is still energetically favored.