King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

Electrical Engineering Department

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) Structure and its Electromagnetic (EM) Applications

Hesham Al-Zuraiqi Senior Student
EE 340-1 Electromagnetics

Abstract- Carbon Nanotube is one of the building blocks of nanotechnology related applications we might face nowadays. Carbon Nanotube (CNT) is a fairly new molecular structure of carbon that is being used recently in Nano-Scale related electromagnetic (EM) applications. It has unique electrical and mechanical properties that depend on the cylindrical structure of the tube. It can be shaped to act as conductor, semiconductor and insulator. CNT will soon replace the silicon based technologies due to its superior efficiency. This report will introduce the unique flexible structure of CNT, some of the manufacturing and synthesizing techniques, and the EM current and future applications.

have half the mass density of aluminum. The properties of a CNT, like any molecule, are heavily influenced by the way that its atoms are arranged as mentioned earlier. An interesting feature of a CNT is that it has the highest surface area of any molecule due to the fact that a graphene sheet is probably the only example of a sheet-like molecule that is energetically stable under normal conditions. [1] [2]

I. THE DISCOVRY OF CARBON NANOTUBE

Like many other scientific discoveries, CNT was accidentally discovered in 1991 by a Japanese scientist, Sumio Iijima, in his study the arc-discharging process. Such a process later became one of the techniques to synthesize CNT. [1]

II. INTRODUCTION
Interest in nanomaterials has been growing rapidly for the past several years. Especially, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising as new materials for a variety of potential applications. A carbon nanotube is a nano-size cylinder of carbon atoms. Imagine a sheet of carbon atoms, which would look like a sheet of hexagons. If you roll that sheet into a tube, you'd have a carbon nanotube. Carbon nanotube properties depend on how you roll the sheet. In other words, even though all carbon nanotubes are made of carbon, they can be very different from one another based on how you align the individual atoms. [2] The electrical and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes have captured the attention of researchers worldwide. Understanding these properties and exploring their potential applications have been a main driving force for this area. [1]

Figure-1: Three different CNT structures (a) a zig-zag-type nanotube, (b) an armchair-type nanotube, (c) a helical nanotube. [3]

A. Electrical Properties
Scientists have shown that CNT can be conductive, semi-conductive and isolative. Experiments have shown that rolling a graphene sheet around the zigzag axis will result in semi-conductive nanotube while rolling it 30 degrees below the zigzag axis will result in conductive or metallic nanotube which has high electron conductivity. [1]

III. CARBON NANOTUBE STRUCTURES

There are three unique geometries or structures of carbon nanotubes that can be formed using a graphene sheet rolled up differently. Each structure has unique electrical and mechanical properties. These structures are a) zig-zag, b) armchair, and c) helical or chiral as shown in figure-1. [1] [2][4]

B. Mechanical Properties
Besides the unique and useful electrical properties, a CNT has high youngs modulus and tensile strength as can be 6 times harder than steel and 100 time lighter. [1]

V. SYNTHESIS TECHNIQUES OF CNT

The synthesis technique of CNT has been studied extensively and now is being prepared by many methods. Two commonly used methods are arc-discharging and laser ablation.

IV. PROPERTIES OF CARBON NANOTUBE

The diameters of CNT fall in the nanometer scale typically 1 to 3nm, but CNTs can be hundreds of micrometers long. CNTs are stable up to 750 C in air. They

EE 340-1 Electromagnetics

Student Research Term Project 083/2009

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

Electrical Engineering Department

A. Electric Arc Discharge

Arc-discharge and laser ablation methods for the growth of nanotubes have been actively pursued in the past ten years. Both methods involve the condensation of carbon atoms generated from evaporation of solid carbon sources. The temperatures involved in these methods are close to the melting temperature of graphite, 30004000C as shown in figure-2 (a). In arc-discharge, carbon atoms are evaporated by plasma of helium gas ignited by high currents passed through opposing carbon anode and cathode. [1] [2]

or semiconducting. This has inspired the design of several components for nanoelectronics. Moreover, as early as 1995, realizing a rectifying diode by joining one metallic CNT to one semiconductor CNT. Also, field effect transistors (FET) can be built by attaching a semiconductor CNT across two electrodes (source and drain) deposited on an insulating substrate that serves as a gate electrode. Also, CNT can be used as wires since they have a high electron conductive. [1][2][3] B. Nano-Sensor The electrical conductance of semiconductor CNTs was recently demonstrated to be highly sensitive to changes in the chemical composition of the surrounding atmosphere at room temperature, due to charge transfer between the nanotubes and the molecules from the gases adsorbed onto CNT surfaces. Also, CNTs have been used widely nowadays in computer touch screen and in heavy industrial applications sensor, due to their mechanical strength, used for measuring high pressure and weighting heavily loads Generally speaking, the sensitivities of these new nanotubebased sensors are three orders of magnitude higher than those of standard solid state devices. Another reason for using nanotubes instead of current sensors is their simplicity, the facts that they can be placed in very small systems and that they can operate at room temperature, as well as their selectivity. CNT sensors rely on the transfer of charge from the species to be detected to the nanotubes. CNT sensors measure this directly in that the charge transfer either increases or decreases the number of free carriers. The change depends on the state of the tubes and the direction of charge transfer. [1] [6] C. Solar Cells Todays solar cells are simply not efficient enough and are currently too expensive to manufacture for largescale electricity generation. However, potential advancements in nanotechnology have opened the door to the production of cheaper and slightly more efficient solar cells. This high efficiency is made possible by CNT that has more surface area than silicon based solar cells. [5]

B. Laser Ablation
Two types of laser devices are currently utilized for carbon nanotube production: lasers operating in pulsed mode and lasers operating in continuous mode, with the latter generally are providing a smaller CNT in diameter. In this paper laser pulsed mode is explained. Laser pulsed mode utilized intense laser pulses to ablate a carbon target containing 0.5-075 atomic percent of nickel and cobalt. The target will be placed in a tube-furnace heated to 1200C as shown in figure-2 (b). [1] [2] A graphite ball containing the catalyst is placed in the middle of an insulating quartz tube filled with inert gas and placed in an oven maintained at a temperature of 1200 C The energy of the laser beam focused on the graphene ball permits it to vaporize and sublime the graphite by uniformly bombarding its surface. The carbon species, swept along by a flow of neutral gas, are then deposited as soot in different regions: on the conical water-cooled copper collector, on the quartz tube walls, and on the backside of the graphene ball. [1]

VII. COCNCLUSION The past decade witnessed significant research efforts in efficient and high-yield CNT growth methods. The success in CNT growth has led to the wide availability of nanotube materials, and has become a main mechanism behind the recent progress in basis physics studies and applications of nanotechnology.
REFERENCES
Figure-2: CNT Synthesis techniques (a) Arc-discharge process, (b) Laser Ablation process. [2]
[1]Bharat Bhushan. Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology 2nd revised and extended edition May 2005 [2]Mildred S. Dresselhau, Gene Dresselhaus and Phaedon Avouris. Topics in Applied Physics 80 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001 [3]Jeorg Appenzeller. Carbon Nanotube Electronics. Wong et al., ISSCC, 2003. [4]AkioHirakiandHirohisaHirak.Unique carbon-nano-structureKochi University of Technology NOVIEMBRE 2008 [5]Aldous, Scott. How Solar Cells Work. How Stuff Works. 22 May 2005. [6]McGRATH.Carbon Nanotube based Microwave Resonator Gas Sensors.International Journal of High Speed Electronics and Systems.

CNT ELECTROMAGNATIC APPLICATION CNT accidental discovery has opened scientists eyes on the nanotechnology and a lot of applications in nanoscale have been discovered thanks to that discovery. A. Nano-electronics As reported CNT nanotubes can be either metallic (with an electrical conductivity higher than that of copper), EE 340-1 Electromagnetics

VI.

Student Research Term Project 083/2009