Helicity-dependent single-walled carbon nanotube alignment on graphite for helical angle and handedness recognition

• Published in: Nature communications 2013-07, Vol.4 (1), p.2205-2205, Article 2205
• Main Authors: Chen, Yabin, Shen, Ziyong, Xu, Ziwei, Hu, Yue, Xu, Haitao, Wang, Sheng, Guo, Xiaolei, Zhang, Yanfeng, Peng, Lianmao, Ding, Feng, Liu, Zhongfan, Zhang, Jin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/301/357/73; 639/925/930; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3205

Aligned single-walled carbon nanotube arrays provide a great potential for the carbon-based nanodevices and circuit integration. Aligning single-walled carbon nanotubes with selected helicities and identifying their helical structures remain a daunting issue. The widely used gas-directed and surface-directed growth modes generally suffer the drawbacks of mixed and unknown helicities of the aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes. Here we develop a rational approach to anchor the single-walled carbon nanotubes on graphite surfaces, on which the orientation of each single-walled carbon nanotube sensitively depends on its helical angle and handedness. This approach can be exploited to conveniently measure both the helical angle and handedness of the single-walled carbon nanotube simultaneously at a low cost. In addition, by combining with the resonant Raman spectroscopy, the (n,m) index of anchored single-walled carbon nanotube can be further determined from the ( d , θ ) plot, and the assigned (n,m) values by this approach are validated by both the electronic transition energy E ii measurement and nanodevice application. The alignment of carbon nanotubes on a surface is of importance to deploy them in electronic devices. Here, Chen et al. achieve the orientation of carbon nanotubes according to their helical angle and handedness, thus separating nanotubes of different electronic properties.