Benzene-derived carbon nanothreads

Autor: Nasim Alem, John V. Badding, Enshi Xu, Malcolm Guthrie, Stephen K. Davidowski, Thomas C. Fitzgibbons, George D. Cody, Vincent H. Crespi
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Materials. 14:43-47
ISSN: 1476-4660
1476-1122
DOI: 10.1038/nmat4088
Popis: Low-dimensional carbon nanomaterials such as fullerenes, nanotubes, graphene and diamondoids have extraordinary physical and chemical properties. Compression-induced polymerization of aromatic molecules could provide a viable synthetic route to ordered carbon nanomaterials, but despite almost a century of study this approach has produced only amorphous products. Here we report recovery to ambient pressure of macroscopic quantities of a crystalline one- dimensional sp(3) carbon nanomaterial formed by high-pressure solid-state reaction of benzene. X-ray and neutron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, solid-state NMR, transmission electron microscopy and first-principles calculations reveal close- packed bundles of subnanometre-diameter sp(3)-bonded carbon threads capped with hydrogen, crystalline in two dimensions and short-range ordered in the third. These nanothreads promise extraordinary properties such as strength and stiffness higher than that of sp(2) carbon nanotubes or conventional high-strength polymers. They may be the first member of a new class of ordered sp(3) nanomaterials synthesized by kinetic control of high-pressure solid-state reactions.
Databáze: OpenAIRE