Toward the Bulk, Chiral Separation of Carbon Nanotubes: Experimental Confirmation of Nanotube-Substrate Registration Effects

By Carl Picconatto , George Lin , Julian McMorrow , S. Gerke

We investigate experimentally the interaction of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) as a first step toward realizing a method for the bulk, chiral separation of CNTs.

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We investigate experimentally the interaction of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) as a first step toward realizing a method for the bulk, chiral separation of CNTs. Detailed calculations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 85503, 2004] suggest a very strongly preferred, chirality-dependent orientation for CNTs interacting with an HOPG substrate, resulting from the registration of atoms in the CNTs with those in the substrate. Here, we report preliminary experimental results evaluating the prevalence of this orientation dependence, and find that our initial results are consistent with the calculations.