Rate-selected growth of ultrapure semiconducting carbon nanotube arrays.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31578325.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12519-5 and PMC identifier 6775125.
- 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
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising candidates for smart electronic devices. However, it is challenging to mediate their bandgap or chirality from a vapor-liquid-solid growth process. Here, we demonstrate rate-selected semiconducting CNT arrays based on interlocking between the atomic assembly rate and bandgap of CNTs. Rate analysis confirms the Schulz-Flory distribution which leads to various decay rates as length increases in metallic and semiconducting CNTs. Quantitatively, a nearly ten-fold faster decay rate of metallic CNTs leads to a spontaneous purification of the predicted 99.9999% semiconducting CNTs at a length of 154 mm, and the longest CNT can be 650 mm through an optimized reactor. Transistors fabricated on them deliver a high current of 14 μA μm<sup>-1</sup> with on/off ratio around 10<sup>8</sup> and mobility over 4000 cm<sup>2</sup> V<sup>-1</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. Our rate-selected strategy offers more freedom to control the CNT purity in-situ and offers a robust methodology to synthesize perfectly assembled nanotubes over a long scale.