Science and Industrial Applications of Nano-Carbon Materials
Sumio Iijima
Faculty of Science and Technology, Meijo University,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology /Nanotube Research
Center, and Nagoya University
The state of the art of synthesis of nano-carbon materials that we have studied so far
will be reviewed. One of challenge in the formation of SWCNT is to control its
diameter and chirality, for which we have tried to grow SWCNTs using metal catalyst of
uni-sized metal clusters that are selected by a mass-separator. Carbon nanohorn (CNH)
aggregates produced by means of CO2 laser ablation method can be used for
bio-medical application, potable super-capacitor, composites etc.. The usual size of the
CNH is 80nm but sometimes s smaller size of less than 30nm for a certain bio-medical
application is needed. Such CNHs have been successfully realized by optimizing
growth condition of CNHs.
Formation of a large size graphene sheet by thermal CVD method using a copper
substrate foil has been reported [1]. The method requires a high temperature CVD
reactor (near 1000C), so that it cannot be used in a conventional Si device process and
therefore an alternative low temperature synthesis of graphene is needed. For this
purpose we utilized a new surface-wave micro-wave CVD method which has been
developed originally for the nano-diamond film growth at low temperature down to
room temperature [2,3]. We shall demonstrate the growth of an A4-size graphene sheet
grown at 300C.
In the last half part of this presentation will be concerned with structural
characterization of nano-carbon materials using atom-resolution electron microscopes as
well as other characterization methods of Raman, photoluminescence and optical
absorption spectroscopy, etc. The advantage of high resolution electron microscopy
(HRTEM) over other techniques is to be able to characterize local atomic structures
such as lattice defects and edge structures of nano materials which cannot be studied in
conventional techniques. Another emphasis of HRTEM will be on dynamic observation
of a reaction process which is not available for other high resolution probe microscope
techniques such as STM. We thank for a recent progress of HRTEM technology such as
aberration correction and EELS, which has made possible elemental analysis,
distinction of valency and more on individual atom basis. Some latest examples of
above mentioned observations will be demonstrated [4-13].
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