High Yield Methods for Cutting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract : Methods for cutting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) to controlled lengths for material, biological and electronic applications are being developed. The research aims at establishing scalable cutting processes for preparing high quality short SWNTs with high yield, systematic procedure for evaluating the cutting results, and effective, scalable methods for length sorting of cut SWNTs. Caro's acid has been studied and chosen as the finishing cutting reagent. High temperature fluorination plus Caro's acid have been developed as our primary cutting method. Electron beam irradiation of ozonated SWNTs has shown promising cutting result. A standard procedure has been developed to individualize SWNT samples and to determine the length distribution. Preliminary results have indicated that phase separation technique could be a scalable, efficient means for length sorting of SWNTs. Ultra-short SWNTs (US-SWNTs) were produced by oxidation in oleum using fuming nitric acid.