Artificial tailoring of carbon nanotube and its electrical properties under high-resolution transmission electron microscope

In-situ Observation of Current-Pulse-Induced Curling of Graphene Edges and Carbon-Cages Production

“…But the operation for those high energy TEM was frequently conducted under an intense beam current density of 200 A/cm 2 . Such beam induced onion production 30,33) were also reported under conventional TEM acceleration ranging 200 to 300 keV, but they are limited in an extreme condition under intense beam current with about 200 A/cm 2 , although the typical TEM operation was carried out with about 10-20 A/cm 2 . Therefore, the production of graphitic onions during TEM operation is strongly affected by the thermal heating coexisting with the electron excitation.…”

“…In addition, the edge of a small graphene flakes on a graphite becomes to have curling under the influence of irradiated e-beam, even though the beam energy was lower than the knock-on threshold, and the curling of the graphene edges were zipped together to form the resultant of fullerenes. 32,33) Here, we report a new cage transformation process originated from the curling of the graphene edges where a cyclic current pulse strongly triggered the curling of the edges and enhanced the transformation of the cages.…”

Beam-induced graphitic carbon cage transformation from sumanene aggregates

“…[3][4][5] In addition, charge transfer from an encapsulated metal to the outer surface strongly induces an electrical polarization in metal-encapsulated fullerene, which could turn out to be a key mechanism for molecular switching devices. 6,7 Thus, rational control of these carbon-cage structures [8][9][10][11][12][13] would be of great benefit for future electronic applications as well as for nanomechanical applications. 14,15 Fullerenes and carbon cages have previously been synthesized from a graphite source material at high temperatures of about 3000 K 16,17 under the non-equilibrium ambient of Arc-plasma.…”