Groove-Assisted Global Spontaneous Alignment of Carbon Nanotubes in Vacuum Filtration

Abstract

Ever since the discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), it has long been a challenging goal to create macroscopically ordered assemblies, or crystals, of CNTs that preserve the one-dimensional quantum properties of individual CNTs on a macroscopic scale. Recently, a simple and well-controlled method was reported for producing wafer-scale crystalline films of highly aligned and densely packed CNTs through spontaneous global alignment that occurs during vacuum filtration [\textit{Nat.\ Nanotechnol}.\ \textbf{11}, 633 (2016)]. However, a full understanding of the mechanism of such global alignment has not been achieved. Here, we report results of a series of systematic experiments that demonstrate that the CNT alignment direction can be controlled by the surface morphology of the filter membrane used in the vacuum filtration process. More specifically, we found that the direction of parallel grooves pre-existing on the surface of the filter membrane dictates the direction of the resulting CNT alignment. Furthermore, we intentionally imprinted periodically spaced parallel grooves on a filter membranes using a diffraction grating, which successfully defined the direction of the global alignment of CNTs in a precise and reproducible manner.

arXiv comment18 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Science and applications of wafer-scale crystalline carbon nanotube films prepared through controlled vacuum filtration
• Strong and broadly tunable plasmon resonances in thick films of aligned carbon nanotubes
• Intrinsically ultrastrong plasmon-exciton interactions in crystallized films of carbon nanotubes
• Global alignment of solution-based single-wall carbon nanotube films via machine-vision controlled filtration

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• Controlled Exciton-Plasmon Coupling in a Mixture of Ultrathin Periodically Aligned Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Arrays
• Macroscopically Self-Aligned and Chiralized Carbon Nanotubes: From Filtration to Innovation
• Confinement-Induced Nonlocality and Casimir Force in Transdimensional Systems
• Transition from Diffusive to Superdiffusive Transport in Carbon Nanotube Networks via Nematic Order Control
• Anisotropic Photon Emission Enhancement near Carbon Nanotube Metasurfaces
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