Molecular dynamics simulations showed that a basal carbon nanotube can activate and guide the fabrication of single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on its internal surface by self-assembly of edge-unpassivated graphene nanoribbons with defects. Furthermore, the distribution of defects on self-assembled CNTs is controllable. The system temperature and defect fraction are two main factors that influence the success of self-assembly. Due to possible joint flaws formed at the boundaries under a relatively high constant temperature, a technique based on increasing the temperature is adopted. Self-assembly is always successful for graphene nanoribbons with relatively small defect fractions, while it will fail in cases with relatively large ones. Similar to the self-assembly of graphene nanoribbons with defects, graphene nanoribbons with different types of dopants can also be self-assembled into carbon nanotubes. The finding provides a possible fabrication technique not only for carbon nanotubes with metallic or semi-conductive properties but also for carbon nanotubes with electromagnetic induction characteristics.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0804-0

The work reported here is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11125211 and 11372317), and the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2012CB937500). MD simulations are carried out at Supercomputing Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Zhang C,Chen SH. Defect- and dopant-controlled carbon nanotubes fabricated by self-assembly of graphene nanoribbons[J]. NANO RESEARCH,2015,8(9):2988-2997.