En Route to High-Density Chiral Single-walled Carbon Nanotube Arrays using Solid Trojan Catalysts

Solid catalyst is widely recognized as an effective strategy to control the chirality of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). However, it is still not compatible with high density in horizontal arrays. “Trojan” catalysts strategy is one of the most effective methods to realize SWNTs with high density and has great potential in chirality control. Here, the co-realization of high density and chirality controlling for SWNTs in a low-temperature growth process is reported based on the developed solid “Trojan” catalyst. High temperature “Trojan” catalyst formation process provides sufficient catalyst number to acquire high density. These liquid “Trojan” catalysts are cooled to solid state by adopting low growth temperature (540 °C), which can be good template to realize the chirality controlling of SWNTs with exposing six-fold symmetry face, (111). Finally, (9, 6) and (13, 1) SWNTs enriched horizontal array with the purity of ≈90% and density of 4 tubes µm⁻¹ is realized. The comparison between the distribution of initial catalysts and the density of as-grown tubes indicates no sacrificing on catalysts number to improve chirality selectivity. This work opens a new avenue on the catalyst's design and chirality controlling in SWNTs growth.