What is the best visualization of carbon nanotubes?
Answers
hi
Visualization and manipulation of carbon nanotubes under an optical microscope
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Direct visualization and manipulation of individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in ambient conditions is of great significance for their characterizations and applications. However, the direct visualization, location, and manipulation of individual CNTs is extremely difficult due to their nanoscale diameters. The observation of individual CNTs usually requires electron microscopes under high vacuum. Advanced analytical equipment, such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and atomic force microscope (AFM), etc., have been employed to characterize the location, morphology, and structure of CNTs.
However, all the above mentioned techniques cannot guarantee the efficient location and manipulation of ultralong CNTs, due to their characteristics such as limited accessibility, requiring high vacuum, narrow field of view, and small operating space.
A research group in China, led by Prof. Fei Wei in the Department of Chemical Engineering of Tsinghua University, have proposed a facile way to realize optical visualization of individual carbon nanotubes and, based on that, macroscale manipulation of individual carbon nanotubes that could be carried out under an optical microscope.
"Optical microscopes are routine facilities in many laboratories," says Yingying Zhang, an Associate Professor at Tsinghua University's Center for Nano and Micro Electronics. "Combined with the open operation space of optical microscopes, if individual CNTs can be directly observed with an optical microscope, the in situ observation and manipulation of ultralong CNTs will become much easier."
Compared with other methods proposed before, the optical visualization method proposed here has various advantages. If individual CNTs can be directly observed with an optical microscope, the in situ observation and manipulation of ultralong CNTs will become much easier. Since this process is very easy to perform without any special facilities, this will allow many more laboratories to conduct work in this field.
In their work, reported in Nature Communications ("Optical visualization of individual ultralong carbon nanotubes by chemical vapour deposition of titanium dioxide nanoparticles"), the researchers deposited titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles via chemical vapor deposition onto individual suspended ultralong CNTs.
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