Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have dispersed boron nitride nanotubes coated with a surfactant (Scientists use surfactant to create an ‘inert’ template for nanotube growth) and coated them on surfaces without bonding them together. The team showed that heat treatment can remove the surfactant to reveal pure nanoscale patterns; Chemical vapor deposition can produce coaxial nanotubes in a jig using several materials. The ability to attach nanotubes to an “inert” coating provides scientists with unprecedented access to the characterization of new nanotube applications.
Advances in nanotechnology have made nanotubes and nanosheets easier to find for materials scientists. But studying them alone is not easy. Because they are often assembled or assembled, it is difficult to find optical and electronic components that arise from their small size.
Recent work (Scientists use surfactant to create an ‘inert’ template for nanotube growth) has shown that nanotube materials can be formed on carbon nanotube surfaces, providing highly isolated materials that can be used to identify. But carbon nanotubes have conductive and heat-resistant properties, which makes it difficult to distinguish the electrical and optical properties of the coating and the original nanotube.
Now, a team of Assistant Professor Yusuke Nakanishi, Assistant Professor Yohei Yomogida and Assistant Professor Yasumitsu Miyata of Tokyo Metropolitan University have used boron nitride (BN) coated nanotubes instead as a model for growth. No small task: boron nitride nanotubes are famously sticky. Although they may be dispersed in a surfactant that helps keep the tubes in place, it is not known whether the surfactant can be removed to reveal a clean template. Now, the team has succeeded in finding a surfactant that doesn’t stick to the tubes; they also performed a high-temperature heat treatment that left clean, well-coated nanotubes.
Using a dewatering chemical, many things can be added to the surface of the jigs. The new tube covers the original BN bag, acting as a nanoscale coaxial cable. Importantly, because BN is a coating, the electrical properties of all the coated materials can be increased to an unprecedented depth. This includes the property known as chirality, “protection” and arrangement of atoms in the nanotube that gives rise to various electronic devices.
In principle, the group believes that they can use “nano test tubes” to demonstrate the growth of different substances. They have had success with molybdenum disulfide and carbon, and there may be many more. Add to the optical and electrical inertia of their BN model, and their new platform promises not only the discovery of objects, but also unlimited access to their physico-chemical properties.
