12/30/2023 0 Comments Nature physics if“In prior research, we showed that our vacuum filtration technique can achieve nearly perfect alignment of carbon nanotubes at significant scales,” said Kono, the Karl F. The ability to create large enough quantities of films in which the nanotubes have the same diameter and orientation could fuel innovation across a broad range of domains, from information systems to medical or energy applications. Such random architectures decrease a material’s overall performance. The problem is that most ways to make CNTs in greater quantities ⎯ which is necessary for use in numerous applications ⎯ typically yield heterogeneous, disorderly nanotube assemblies. (Image courtesy of Jacques Doumani/Rice University) Graphic illustration of carbon nanotubes. A single-wall CNT has a diameter approximately 100,000 times smaller than that of a single human hair. “Our methods yield thin, flexible films with tunable chiral properties.”ĬNTs ⎯ hollow cylindrical structures made from carbon atoms ⎯ possess remarkable electrical, mechanical, thermal and optical properties. “These approaches have granted us the ability to deliberately and consistently introduce chirality to materials that, until now, did not exhibit this property on a macroscopic scale,” said Jacques Doumani, a graduate student in applied physics at Rice and the lead author of the study. According to a study in Nature Communications, the resulting “tornado” and “twisted-and-stacked” thin films can control ellipticity ⎯ a property of polarized light ⎯ to a level and in a range of the spectrum that was previously largely beyond reach. Rice University scientists in the lab of Junichiro Kono have developed two ways of making wafer-scale synthetic chiral carbon nanotube (CNT) assemblies starting from achiral mixtures. Jacques Doumani is a graduate student in applied physics at Rice and the lead author of a study published in Nature Communications. However, engineering properties such as chirality reliably at scale is still a significant challenge in nanotechnology. Chiral materials interact with light in very precise ways that are useful for building better displays, sensors and more powerful devices.
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