Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are nanometer-scale structures that have attracted broad
interest due to their exceptional thermal, electronic, and mechanical properties. As a
result, there has been a large effort to develop applications of these materials in various
fields including nanoelectronics and nanophotonics, energy storage, and biomedical
fields. However, controlled production and manufacturing of CNTs still remains a
challenge. In this work we demonstrate a method for controlling the placement and
distribution of carbon nanotubes on surfaces using colloidal lithography.
CNTs in ring-like geometries display interesting properties due to their nanoscale curved
structure. Although several methods have been introduced for the fabrication of these
structures, large scale fabrication of CNT rings with controllable diameter in a practical
manner has thus far been elusive. Here, we use colloidal lithography to assemble
nanotubes from solution into rings with tunable diameter and controllable placement in
large-area periodic arrays. Several parameters and conditions such as the mask size,
concentration and type of solvent for the CNT solutions are tested, and nanotubes with
different quality and purity are used. Characterization of the CNT ring arrays using
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) are
performed. These results demonstrate large periodic areas of rings with good uniformity
throughout the arrays. The arrays consist of rings with diameters between 180–220 nm
when using 780 nm diameter sphere colloidal masks. Analysis of ring thickness for these
rings indicated their cross-sections are composed of approximately 10-15 individual
tubes. Rings made with 450 nm spheres had diameters between 100-150 nm, showing the
tunability of the ring diameter enabled by our method. In some cases, mesh-like
structures in the form of periodic interconnected carbon nanotubes were also observed.
Our results demonstrate an efficient and straightforward approach for patterning carbon
nanotubes into well-defined surface distributions with controlled and tunable dimensions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/1384 |
| Date | 29 April 2009 |
| Creators | Motavas, Saloome |
| Contributors | Papadopoulos, Christo |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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