Inter-allotropic transformations in the heterogeneous carbon nanotube networks

Abstract

The allotropic transformations of carbon provide an immense technological interest for tailoring the desired molecular struc-tures in the scalable nanoelectronic devices. Herein, we explore the effects of morphology and geometric alignment of the nano-tubes for the re-engineering of carbon bonds in the heterogeneous carbon nanotube (CNT) networks. By applying alternating voltage pulses and electrical forces, the single-walled CNTs in net-works were predominantly transformed into other predetermined sp(2) carbon structures (multi-walled CNTs and multi-layered gra-phitic nanoribbons), showing a larger intensity in a coalescence-induced mode of Raman spectra with the increasing channel width. Moreover, the transformed networks have a newly discov-ered sp(2)-sp(3) hybrid nanostructures in accordance with the alignment. The sp(3) carbon structures at the small channel are con-trolled, such that they contain up to about 29.4% networks. This study provides a controllable method for specific types of inte-rallotropic transformations/hybridizations, which opens up the further possibility for the engineering of nanocarbon allotropes in the robust large-scale network-based devices.