An Intoduction to Carbon

Nanotubes

By: Shaun Ard

Physics 672
 Fullerenes
 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1996 (Smalley, Kroto, Curl)
 Cage-like structures of
Carbon
 Composed of
honeycomb type lattices Sussex Fullerene Gallery

of hexagons and
pentagons
 Important types include
“Buckeyball” and
Nanotubes

Kohlenstoffnanoroehre Animation
 Nanotube Discovery
 Carbon filaments had
long been known, but
nanotube discovery
credited to S. Iijima in
1991

 Discovered by chance
during investigation of
fullerene production

Y. Ando et al, Growing Carbon Nanotubes,

Materials Today, Oct (2004) 22
 Nanotube Discovery (MWNT)

Copyright Alain Rochefort Assistant Professor

Engineering Physics Department,
S. Iijima, Helical microtubules of graphitic Nanostructure Group, Center for Research on
carbon, Nature (London) 354 (1991) 56 Computation and its Applications (CERCA).
 Nanotube Discovery (SWNT)

S. Iijima et al, Single-shell carbon nanotubes D.S. Bethune et al, Cobalt-catalysed growth
of 1-nm diameter, Nature (London) 363 of carbon nanotubes with single-atomic-layer
(1993) 603 walls, Nature (London) 363 (1993) 605
 Synthesis Enhancement
 Laser-Furnace method
 High quality SWNTs

 Diameter control

 New materials-

“peapods”
 Allows for study of

formation dynamics

Reprinted from Mater. Today, 7,Y.Ando, X. Zhao,T.

Sugai, and M. Kumar,“Growing Carbon Nanotubes,” 22–
29, Copyright 2004, with permission from Elsevier.
 Synthesis Enhancement cont.
 Catalytic Chemical
Vapor Deposition
 Allows for growth of

aligned nanotubes
 Use of a variety of

substrates or
surfaces
 Easily scaled up for

increased production Firstnano “EasyTube 3000”

 Properties: Foundation
 Nanotubes are fully
described by their chiral
vector
 Ch = n â1 + m â2
 Important parameters
 dt = (3/p)ac-c(m2 + mn
+ n2)1/2
A. Maiti, Caron Nanotubes: Band gap engineering
 Q=tan-1(3n/(2m + n)) with strain, Nature Materials 2 (2003) 440

 Grouped according to q
 Armchair: n=m, q=30°
 Zigzag: n or m=0, q=0°
 Chiral: 0°<q < 30°

V. Popov, Carbon nanotubes: properties and applications,

 Properties: Electronic
 1-D band structure
calculated from 2-D
graphene band
structure using “zone
folding” scheme

 Ekμ= E2D(k*K2/|K2|+μK1)

 K1=(-t2b1+ t1b2)/ N

 K2=(mb1- nb2)/ N (5,5) (9,0) (10,0)

V. Popov, Carbon nanotubes: properties and applications,
 Properties: Electronic cont.
 Theory predicts
nanotubes exhibit
both metallic and
semi-conducting
behavior
 |n-m| evenly divisible
by 3- metallic

 All others semi-

conducting with a
band gap inversely
proportional to the
tube diameter

T.W. Odomet al, Atomic Structure and

Electronic Properties of Single-Walled
Nanotubes, Nature (London) 391 (1998) 62
 Properties: Mechanical
 Young’s Modulus

 On the order of 1
Tpa (steel ~200
GPa)

 No dependence on
diameter for MWNTs
but strong
dependence for
SWNTs J. Salvetat, Elastic Modulus of Ordered and
Disordered Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes,
Adv. Mater. 11 (1999) 161
 Applications

Nano-Wires
 Applications

Nano Transistors
Tans et al, Room-temperature transistor based on
a single carbon nanotube, Nature 393 (1998)
 Applications

Field Emitters

From IPN CNT group

Applications

MIT/Riccardo Signorelli
J. Fischer, Matt Ray/EHP

Lithium Ion Batteries Ultra Capacitors

Charge Storage
Conclusion

Nano =