Self assembly of carbon nanotubes (CNTs)

22 July 2007

Modified carbon nanotubes have been prepared by chemical and non-covalently modified methods. This modification significantly improves their physicochemical properties and it provides the efficient incorporation of modified carbon nanotubes into various devices. Actually an aligned micro patterned form of carbon nanotubes as highly desirable for device applications.

Only a few carbon nanotubes have so far been functionalized on certain pre-treated substrates. Researchers have prepared aligned single wall carbon nanotubes by self assembling of nanotubes functionalized with thiol group on a gold substrate. In this work Liu and his team prepaed carbonyl terminated short SWNTs (single wall carbon nanotubes) by acid oxidation. These wee later functionalized with thiol containing alkyl amine. Self assembly of these single wall carbon nanotubes was carried out by dipping gold ball in thiol functionalized SWNT in ethanol. The whole process was followed by ultrasonication and drying in high purity nitrogen.

In a recent study micro contact printing technique was used to pep pattern the thiol self assembled monolayer on the gold surface. Nan and is research team has found that acid oxidized single wall carbon nanotubes can be deposited on a pretreated gold substrate through an amide linkage.

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