Single-walled carbon nanotube structure and radiation defects under the high energy electron beam

Abstract

The effect of electron irradiation up to fluence of 1.54×1017 electron/cm2 on the structural parameters, sizes of nanocrystallites, microstrains, and Raman spectra of a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) was studied. Electron irradiation leads to an increase in the lattice parameters in the a and b directions from 4.7623 Å to 4.9378 Å and a decrease along the c axis from 3.9491 Å to 3.9469 Å. Electron irradiation stimulates the growth of the nanocrystallite size from 4.06 nm to 5.03 nm, leads to a shift of the Raman spectra towards higher frequencies, and indicates the appearance of a spectrum at 805 cm–1, which is caused by the formation of defects in a SWCNT.