Published in

IOP Publishing, Nanotechnology, 18(17), p. 4533-4536

DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/17/18/001

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Drying induced upright sliding and reorganization of carbon nanotube arrays

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Driven by capillary force, wet carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays have been found to reorganize into cellular structures upon drying. During the reorganization process, individual CNTs are firmly attached to the substrate and have to lie down on the substrate at cell bottoms, forming closed cells. Here we demonstrate that by modifying catalyst structures, the adhesion of CNTs to the substrate can be weakened. Upon drying such CNT arrays, CNTs may slide away from their original sites on the surface and self-assemble into cellular patterns with bottoms open. It is also found that the sliding distance of CNTs increases with array height, and drying millimetre tall arrays leads to the sliding of CNTs over a few hundred micrometres and the eventual self-assembly into discrete islands. By introducing regular vacancies in CNT arrays, CNTs may be manipulated into different patterns.