Miguel Fernando Diaz Moreno

SUMMARY OF NOTEBOOK KEY IDEAS SELECTED NANOMATERIALS

Prepared by M. Gallardo and L. Davila

June 24, 201006

After your readings and annotations on nanomaterials (e.g. carbon nanotubes, graphene and buckyball), please use your notebook annotations with key ideas to summarize the following:

A. Brief Description of Nanomaterials in general (what they are, uses, challenges, etc)

  • Nanomaterialsis a field which takes a material science-based approach to nanotechnology, it studies materials with morphological features on the nanoscale.[5]
  • Nanomaterials include organics, metals, polymers, semiconductors, ceramics, glasses, minerals, and composites studied at a small scale.[1]
  • Advanced Materials are materials that are utilized in high technology application, devices or product using intricate sophisticated principle. [3]
  • Uses for nanomaterials range from computer chips, light and electron emitting devices, structural materials, energy conversion and storage, medical implants…etc.[1]
  • Challenges remain including the development of more sophisticated and specialized materials, as well as fixing renewable resources.[3]

B. Brief Description of Graphene and Bucky Balls (what they are, uses, challenges, etc)

  • Graphene structure is composed of layers of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms within the layers each carbon atom is bonding to three coplanar neighboring atoms by covalent bonds.[3]
  • Excellent lubrication properties due to van der waals.
  • Uses include furnaces, electrodes for arc welding, chemical and biological sensors, batteries[5][2]
  • Graphene transistors for electronic devices[6]
  • Radiofrequencey devices[6]
  • Graphene challenges included opening a sizeable and well defined bandgap, making large-area grapheme transistors that operate in the current saturation regime and fabricating graphene nanoribbion with well defined width and clean edges.[6]
  • Fullerenes (Buckyballs) is composed of a hollow spherical cluster of sixty carbon atoms, each molecule is bonded to one another to form hexagons and pentagons.[4]
  • Medical uses include binding specific antibiotics to a structure to target resistance bacteria.[5]

C. Brief Description of Carbon Nanotubes (what they are, uses, challenges, etc)

  • Carbon Nanotube is a structure of graphite rolled into a tube with both end capped with C60 fullerene hemisphere.[4]
  • The uses of carbon nanotube include Field Emission- based Panel Displays,

Novel semiconducting and hydrogen storage devices, Structural reinforcement agents, Chemical sensors.[1]

  • The biggest challenge thatSynthesis technology is not sufficiently developed for large scale electronics[3]
  • Other technological challenges involves controlling the CNT chirality, isolating CNTs from bundles, and alignment in nanocomposite.[3]

D. Brief Summary of Structure of Carbon Nanotubes (3 different types, names, synthesis methods in general)

  • Single Wall Nanotube (SWNT) have a diameter close to one 1nm, with length that can be millions times longer.[5]
  • MultiWall Carbon Nanotube (MWNT) consist of multiple layers of (concentric tubes ) graphite.[5]
  • Double Wall Carbon Nanotubes (DWNT) similar to single wall but resistance to chemicals is significally improved.[5]
  • Nanoribbon-close cousins of nanowires posses a uniform rectangular structure.[1]
  • Synthesis includes arch discharge, laser ablation, high pressure carbon monoxide, and the most commonly used chemical vapor deposition.[5]
  • Types of nanotubes:
  • Torus- has a doughnut shape and strong magnetic properties.[5]
  • Nano Bud –is a combination of Carbon nanotubes and fullerenes.[5]
  • Cupstacked CNTs-have semiconductiong behavior due to the stacking of graphene layers.[5]

E. Brief Summary of Properties of Carbon Nanotubes (main properties)

  • Strength- strong, tough, stiffest, result of covalent bonding sp^2 bonds.[5]
  • Tensile- strength 50-200GPa strongest material, excessive tensile strength will produce plastic deformation, not strong in compression.[4]
  • Kinetic-MWNTs exhibit telescoping properties(inner nanotube may slide) creating a perfect linear rotation.[5]
  • Thermal conductor along the tube and good insulators laterally to the tube axis.[5]
  • Unique structure which is sensitive to electricity depends on the orientation of hexagonal in graphene phase(tube wall) may have electrical property as either a metal or semiconductor.[5]
  • CNTs are elastic to the highestdegree, they do not display plasticity behavior even under large deformation. [1]
  • Depending on the chiral indices, carbon nanotubes can behave like metals or semiconductors.[1]

F. Brief Summary of Potential Applications of Carbon Nanotubes

  • Clothes, sports gear to combat jackets and space elevators.[5]
  • Nanotube based transistors have been made to operate at room temperature and are capable of digital switching using a single atom.[5]
  • Paper batteries engineered to use paper thin sheets of cellulose infused with aligned carbon nanotubes.[5]
  • Computational devices such as spintronics and pseudospsintronics.[2]

References:

1.Molecular Modeling Techniques in Material Sciences

2.Beyond Silicon: Carbon-Based Nantechnology-Journal

3.Nanoengineering Smart Materials

4.E45 book

5.Wiki

6. Nature Technologies: Graphene transistors

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