Growth of semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes with a narrow band-gap distribution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27025784.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms11160 and PMC identifier 4820937.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The growth of high-quality semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes with a narrow band-gap distribution is crucial for the fabrication of high-performance electronic devices. However, the single-wall carbon nanotubes grown from traditional metal catalysts usually have diversified structures and properties. Here we design and prepare an acorn-like, partially carbon-coated cobalt nanoparticle catalyst with a uniform size and structure by the thermal reduction of a [Co(CN)6](3-) precursor adsorbed on a self-assembled block copolymer nanodomain. The inner cobalt nanoparticle functions as active catalytic phase for carbon nanotube growth, whereas the outer carbon layer prevents the aggregation of cobalt nanoparticles and ensures a perpendicular growth mode. The grown single-wall carbon nanotubes have a very narrow diameter distribution centred at 1.7 nm and a high semiconducting content of >95%. These semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes have a very small band-gap difference of ∼0.08 eV and show excellent thin-film transistor performance.