Research on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is now in its second decade and Raman spectrsocopy was a main tool for unravelling many of their unique optical properties. From a materials engineering standpoint, one of the most interesting properties of CNTs is that they have an interior which can be filled with various molecules and in which chemical reactions inside a 1D nano cleanroom can be studied. The most prominent examples are C₆₀ peapods, i.e. C₆₀ fullerenes filled into single-wall CNTs, and their reaction to double-wall CNTs (DWCNTs) at temperatures around 1200 °C. We used Raman spectrsocopy and x-ray diffraction to study this growth process in detail [1]. Several other carbon-rich precursor molecules were subsequently filled into the tubes and further transformed into DWCNTs. A very interesting molecule in this regard is ferrocene, which gives rise to a completely different growth process (already at 600 °C) for the inner tubes than C₆₀ (catalytic vs. non-catalytic growth). [2] Another important point is the engineering of the distance between the encaged molecules inside the tubes. Especially for 1D spin chains having control over the spin separation is crucial. In this presentation we will show how Raman spectroscopy together with other techniques can be used to characterize and analyze all these various materials.

[1] R. Pfeiffer et al., Nano Lett. 7, 2428 (2007).

[2]  H. Shiozawa et al., Adv. Mater. 20, 1443 (2008).

• Legal notice:
  

  Copyright (c) Pielaszek Research, all rights reserved.
  The above materials, including auxiliary resources, are subject to Publisher's copyright and the Author(s) intellectual rights. Without limiting Author(s) rights under respective Copyright Transfer Agreement, no part of the above documents may be reproduced without the express written permission of Pielaszek Research, the Publisher. Express permission from the Author(s) is required to use the above materials for academic purposes, such as lectures or scientific presentations.
  In every case, proper references including Author(s) name(s) and URL of this webpage: https://science24.com/paper/15891 must be provided.