Ni Bing, Liu Huiling, Wang Peng-Peng, He Jie, Wang Xun
Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Nat Commun. 2015 Oct 29;6:8756. doi: 10.1038/ncomms9756.
The single-walled nanotube (SWNT) is an interesting nanostructure for fundamental research and potential applications. However, very few inorganic SWNTs are available to date due to the lack of efficient fabrication methods. Here we synthesize four types of SWNT: sulfide; hydroxide; phosphate; and polyoxometalate. Each type of SWNT possesses essentially uniform diameters. Detailed studies illustrate that the formation of SWNTs is initiated by the self-coiling of the corresponding ultrathin nanostructure embryo/building blocks on the base of weak interactions between them, which is not limited to specific compounds or crystal structures. The interactions between building blocks can be modulated by varying the solvents used, thus multi-walled tubes can also be obtained. Our results reveal that the generalized synthesis of inorganic SWNTs can be achieved by the self-coiling of ultrathin building blocks under the proper weak interactions.
单壁纳米管（SWNT）是一种在基础研究和潜在应用方面颇具吸引力的纳米结构。然而，由于缺乏高效的制备方法，迄今为止可获得的无机单壁纳米管非常少。在此，我们合成了四种类型的单壁纳米管：硫化物型；氢氧化物型；磷酸盐型；以及多金属氧酸盐型。每一种类型的单壁纳米管都具有基本均匀的直径。详细研究表明，单壁纳米管的形成是由相应的超薄纳米结构胚胎/构建块在它们之间的弱相互作用基础上自卷曲引发的，这并不局限于特定的化合物或晶体结构。构建块之间的相互作用可以通过改变所使用的溶剂来调节，因此也可以获得多壁管。我们的结果表明，通过在适当的弱相互作用下超薄构建块的自卷曲，可以实现无机单壁纳米管的通用合成。
