Van der Waals SWCNT@BN Heterostructures Synthesized from Solution-Processed Chirality-Pure Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Published

November 10, 2022

Author(s)

Chiyu Zhang, Jacob Fortner, Peng Wang, Jeffrey Fagan, Shuhui Wang, Min Liu, Shigeo Maruyama, YuHuang Wang

Abstract

Single-wall carbon nanotubes in boron nitride (SWCNT@BN) are one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures that exhibit intriguing physical and chemical properties. As with their carbon nanotube counterparts, these heterostructures can form different chirality, providing rich structures but also posing a significant synthetic challenge to controlling their structure. Enabled by advances in nanotube chirality sorting, clean removal of the surfactant used for solution processing, and a simple method to fabricate free-standing sub-monolayer films of chirality pure SWCNTs as templates for the BN growth, we show it is possible to directly grow BN on chirality-pure SWCNTs from solution processing to form van der Waals heterostructures. We further report factors affecting the heterostructure formation, including an accelerated growth rate in the presence of H2, and significantly improved crystallization of the grown BN, with the BN thickness controlled down to one single BN layer, through the presence of a Cu foil in the reactor. Transmission electron microscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopic mapping confirm the synthesis of SWCNT@BN from the solution purified nanotubes. The photoluminescence peak of (7,5)-SWCNT@BN heterostructure is found to redshift by 10 nm relative to that of (7,5)-SWCNT.

Citation

ACS Nano

Pub Type

Journals

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https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c07128

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Keywords

single-wall carbon nanotube, SWCNT, heterostructure, nanomaterial

Citation

Zhang, C. , Fortner, J. , Wang, P. , Fagan, J. , Wang, S. , Liu, M. , Maruyama, S. and Wang, Y. (2022), Van der Waals SWCNT@BN Heterostructures Synthesized from Solution-Processed Chirality-Pure Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes, ACS Nano, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c07128, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935239 (Accessed October 17, 2025)