Chemically-functionalized carbon nanotubes have received a great deal of interest in recent years because of their potential use in a variety of electronic, materials, sensing, and biomedical applications. Many methods for functionalizing carbon nanotubes have been developed, yet the local effects of functionalization chemistry are not well understood. The addition of functional groups can affect the material properties including the mechanical stability of the carbon nanotubes. We have found that when nanotubes are acid-treated to create carboxylic acid functional groups as a starting point for the addition of many different functional moieties, the materials can be degraded controllably under mild conditions (i.e., normal scanning conditions) by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Here we show that functionalization chemistry will allow for low-voltage templated cutting of carbon nanotubes by STM. Because identification of functional groups by scanning probe microscopy can be difficult, we attach gold nanoparticles to the sidewalls of the carbon nanotubes via a thiol bridge. In addition to STM and AFM measurements, chemical modification is verified by Raman, UV-Vis, and FT-IR spectroscopic techniques.

Characterization of the mechanical stability of chemically functionalized carbon nanotubes by scanning probe microscopy

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.