Premium
Structure of Single‐Wall Carbon Nanotubes: A Graphene Helix
Author(s) -
Lee JaeKap,
Lee Sohyung,
Kim JinGyu,
Min BongKi,
Kim YongIl,
Lee KyungIl,
An Kay Hyeok,
John Phillip
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201400884
Subject(s) - graphene , carbon nanotube , materials science , chirality (physics) , nanotechnology , mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes , nanomaterials , transmission electron microscopy , graphene nanoribbons , ribbon , carbon fibers , helix (gastropod) , high resolution transmission electron microscopy , chemical physics , nanotube , composite material , chemistry , composite number , physics , ecology , chiral symmetry breaking , quantum mechanics , snail , nambu–jona lasinio model , biology , quark
Evidence is presented in this paper that certain single‐wall carbon nanotubes are not seamless tubes, but rather adopt a graphene helix resulting from the spiral growth of a nano‐graphene ribbon. The residual traces of the helices are confirmed by high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The analysis also shows that the tubular graphene material may exhibit a unique armchair structure and the chirality is not a necessary condition for the growth of carbon nanotubes. The description of the structure of the helical carbon nanomaterials is generalized using the plane indices of hexagonal space groups instead of using chiral vectors. It is also proposed that the growth model, via a graphene helix, results in a ubiquitous structure of single‐wall carbon nanotubes.