1. An Intoduction to Carbon Nanotubes
By: Shaun Ard
Physics 672

2. Fullerenes Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996 (Smalley, Kroto, Curl)
Cage-like structures of Carbon
Composed of honeycomb type lattices of hexagons and pentagons
Important types include “Buckeyball” and Nanotubes
Sussex Fullerene Gallery
Kohlenstoffnanoroehre Animation

3. 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

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

5. Nanotube Discovery (SWNT)
S. Iijima et al, Single-shell carbon nanotubes of 1-nm diameter, Nature (London) 363 (1993) 603
D.S. Bethune et al, Cobalt-catalysed growth of carbon nanotubes with single-atomic-layer walls, Nature (London) 363 (1993) 605

6. 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.

7. 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”

8. Properties: Foundation
Nanotubes are fully described by their chiral vector
Ch = n â1 + m â2
Important parameters
dt = (Ö3/p)ac-c(m2 + mn + n2)1/2
Q=tan-1(Ö3n/(2m + n))
Grouped according to q
Armchair: n=m, q=30°
Zigzag: n or m=0, q=0°
Chiral: 0°<q < 30°
A. Maiti, Caron Nanotubes: Band gap engineering with strain, Nature Materials 2 (2003) 440
V. Popov, Carbon nanotubes: properties and applications, Materials Science and Engineering R 43 (2004)

9. 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, Materials Science and Engineering R 43 (2004)

10. 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

11. 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

12. Applications
Nano-Wires

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

14. Applications
Field Emitters
From IPN CNT group

15. Applications Charge Storage Lithium Ion Batteries Ultra Capacitors
                                                                
MIT/Riccardo Signorelli
J. Fischer, Matt Ray/EHP
Lithium Ion Batteries
Ultra Capacitors
Charge Storage

16. Conclusion
Nano =