Category Archives: Keynote Abstracts

Milestones in Synthesis, Dispersion, and Applications that Realized Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes Industrialization 

Kenji Hata

Nanotube Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and TASC: Technology Research Association for Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes 

Abstract

After two decades of extensive research, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) are going to be industrialized at last. By the time of the conference, Nippon-Zeon will have announced that they will launch the first commercial SWNT production plant based on the super-growth technology in 2015. Concurrently, a couple of applications such as SWNT super-capacitors and composites would hit the market. To realize this, not only the development of mass production technique was necessary but also new concepts in CNT dispersion were crucial to keep the length of the long SWNTs and development of new application were required. Indeed, I envision that the “first” SWNT industrial applications are going to be very different from what we researchers had thought CNT would be useful for. In this talk I will present milestones, new concepts, new directions and aspects in synthesis, dispersion and applications of long SWNTs that have led to industrialization.

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Towards large-area monocrystalline graphene: Growth and observations 

Young Hee Lee¹

¹Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Sungkyunkwan University,Suwon, Kyunggi-do 440-746, South Korea 

²Department of Energy Science, Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University,Suwon, Kyunggi-do 440-746, South Korea 

E-mail address: leeyoung@skku.edu 

Grain boundaries in graphene are formed via the stitching of islands during the initial growth stage, and these boundaries govern transport properties and related device performance. Graphene can be ideally grown from a single nucleation seed, but its growth to large-area graphene can be terminated by several unknown self-limiting growth factors. Another approach is to start with numerous nucleation seeds and allow them to grow and coalesce together to produce large-area graphene. However, graphene grain boundaries (GGBs) are inevitably formed via stitching of graphene flakes, consequently limiting the graphene quality. We will describe several growth factors to achieve monocrytalline graphene growth during CVD. Another issue is how to confirm grain boundary-free large-area graphene in centimetre scales. We will present several methods of identifying monocrytallinity of graphene in large area together with local transport phenomena at the grain boundaries.

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Carbon Nanotubes: From Basic Research to Commercialization

Shoushan Fan¹,

¹Department of Physics & Tsinghua‐Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 100084.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) is a promising nanomaterial for real applications due to its excellent mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. The real products of CNT are expected after long time intensive research efforts on it. In this talk, I will present our research works on CNTs in the past two decades, including studies on the growth mechanism, controllable synthesis, physical properties, and real applications of CNTs. In particular, I will show that a unique macroscopic form of CNTs, the super‐aligned CNTs, can bridge the gap between nano‐world and macro‐world and lead CNTs into real applications1‐7. Many real applications, such as field and thermionic emission electron sources,8‐12 high strength CNT yarns,2,6,7 electrodes for batteries and supercapacitors,13‐17 loudspeakers,18,19 displays,20‐22 SERS substrate23, IR detector24 etc. have been demonstrated. Real products of CNT TEM grids25, 26 and CNT touch panels4 have already been commercialized. More products based on super‐aligned CNTs are expected to go to the market in the near future27.

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2. X. B. Zhang, K. L. Jiang, et al. Adv. Mater. 2006, 18, 1505.
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4. C. Feng, K. Liu, et al. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2010, 20, 885.
5. K. Liu, Y. H. Sun et al. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2011, 21, 2721.
6. K. Liu, Y. H. Sun, et al. Nanotechnology 2010, 21, 045708.
7. K. Liu, Y. H. Sun, et al. ACS Nano 2010, 4,5827.
8. Y. Wei, et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 2006, 89, 063101.
9. P. Liu, Y. Wei, K. L. Jiang et al. Phys. Rev. B. 2006, 73, 235412.
10. Y. Wei, K. L. Jiang, X. F. Feng, P. Liu, L. Liang, S. S. Fan, Phys. Rev. B. 2007, 76, 045423.
11. Y. Wei, K. L. Jiang, L. Liang, Z. Chen, S. S. Fan, Nano Lett. 2007, 7, 3792.
12. L. Xiao, et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 2008, 92, 153108.
13. H. X. Zhang, C. Feng, et al. Adv. Mater. 2009, 21, 2299.
14. R. F. Zhou, et al. Nanotechnology 2010, 21, 345701.
15. S. Luo, et al. Adv. Mater. 2012, 24, 2294.
16. Y. Wu, et al. Nano Lett. 2013, 13, 818.
17. K. Wang, et al. Adv. Func. Mater. 2013, 23, 846.
18. L. Xiao et al., Nano Lett. 2008, 8, 4539.
19. L. Xiao et al., J. Appl. Phys. 2011, 110, 084311
20. P. Liu, et al. Adv. Mater. 2009, 21, 3563.
21. P. Liu, et al. Nano Lett. 2012, 12, 2391
22. Y. Wei, et al. Nano Lett. 2012, 12, 2548
23. Y. H. Sun, et al. Nano Lett. 2010, 10, 1747.
24. L. Xiao et al., Nanotechnology, 2011, 22, 025502.
25. L. N. Zhang, et al. Nano Lett. 2008, 8, 2564.
26. L. N. Zhang, et al. Nanotechnology, 2011, 22,385704
27. K. L. Jiang, et al. Adv Mater. 2011, 23, 1154.

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 Carbon Nanotube Sorting via Molecular Interactions in Liquid Phases 

Ming Zheng

National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA 

Chirality control is one of the most challenging problems in the carbon nanotube field. Over a decade ago, we and others began to explore separation of single-wall carbon nanotubes by exploiting chirality-dependent molecular interactions in liquid phases. By now, efforts from many groups around the world have resulted in a number of effective ways to achieve metal/semiconductor separation and single-chirality purification, enabling fundamental studies and application development. In this presentation, I will review various separation methods developed so far, discuss common physical mechanism underlying these methods, and highlight a polymer-based liquid two-phase extract method we have recently reported (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, p6822; Adv. Mat. 2014, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201304873). I will give examples to illustrate the versatility of the new method, and provide an outlook for its future development to enable carbon nanotube-based applications.

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Optical Spectroscopy of Individual Carbon Nanotubes

Feng Wang

Physics Department, UC Berkeley; Member, Kavli Energy NanoScience Institue at Berkeley Nanoenergy

Electronic and optical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes depend sensitively on the nanotube chirality. Single tube spectroscopy provides a powerful too to probe the chirality-dependent physics in nanotubes. In the talk, I will discuss our recent progress on optical spectroscopy of individual carbon nanotubes. I will describe a high-throughput optical imaging and spectroscopy technique that enables in-situ characterization of single tubes on substrate and in functional devices. I will also show that systematic spectroscopy of individual double-wall nanotubes indicate strong electronic coupling between the inner- and outer-wall tubes that vary strongly with the nanotube chirality.

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