Study of Carbon Nanotube-Substrate Interaction

Abstract

Environmental effects are very important in nanoscience and nanotechnology. This work reviews the importance of the substrate in single-wall carbon nanotube properties. Contact with a substrate can modify the nanotube properties, and such interactions have been broadly studied as either a negative aspect or a solution for developing carbon nanotube-based nanotechnologies. This paper discusses both theoretical and experimental studies where the interaction between the carbon nanotubes and the substrate affects the structural, electronic, and vibrational properties of the tubes.

Strain Discontinuity, Avalanche, and Memory in Carbon Nanotube Serpentine Systems

“…As shown later, this result evidence the presence of a portion of the SWNT that is strongly fixed to the substrate, through which strain cannot propagate any furtherhence the name "fixed point". Similar behavior has been observed in different cases, in both nanomanipulated (this work) and nonmanipulated samples, 18,19 and in all cases it happens at the starting of a U turn, where the carbon nanotube detaches from a straight segment (see more details about the substrate structure in refs 15 and 16).…”

“…The dynamics behind the formation of such complex structures have been successfully described using multimillion fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations . However, we have extensively applied Raman spectroscopy to locally probe strain in the SWNTs − and we detected a variety of different and complex local SWNT-substrate interactions, which could not be captured by the analysis performed in ref . To fully understand the complexity of the tube-substrate interaction of the quasi-one-dimensional SWNTs with the crystalline quartz, we apply here well-designed nanomanipulation procedures with in situ Raman spectroscopy measurements to study results of the system’s dynamics.…”

Ionization Gas Sensor Using Suspended Carbon Nanotube Beams

“…Li et al [13] fabricated suspended CNT microlines on a polymeric substrate using a wet contact printing method. More recently, suspended chemical CNT sensors have been used to sense humidity [14] with minimal hysteretic effects due to the mitigation of substrate effects [15]. The increase in surface area for adsorption of the analyte also results in better sensitivity and long-term stability of the sensor.…”

Bias Tunable Photocurrent in Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor Heterostructures with Photoresponse Enhanced by Carbon Nanotubes

“…Although standalone CNT photodetectors have shown limited performance, low-noise and enhanced light detection can be achieved by combining nanotubes with traditional semiconductors in hybrid devices [27,28]. The CNT type, whether single- or multi-walled, their quality and configuration in bundles or films of different density and thickness as well as the role of the semiconductor substrate in such hybrid structures have been widely investigated [14,29,30,31]. In this context, photodetectors based on MWCNT [32,33,34] or SWCNT [35,36] films over Si have been the preferred devices for their fast response and high detection capability combined with easy fabrication, low cost, high reliability, and compatibility with existing technologies.…”