Growth of Semiconducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Array by Precisely Inhibiting Metallic Tubes Using ZrO Nanoparticles.

Synthesis of high-quality single-walled carbon nanotubes arrays with pure semiconducting type is crucial for the fabrication of integrated circuits in nanoscale. However, the naturally grown carbon nanotubes usually have diverse structures and properties. Here the bicomponent catalyst using Au and ZrO is designed and prepared. The Au nanoparticle serves as the catalysts for carbon feedstock cracking and facilitating the nucleation of carbon nanotubes, whereas the close-connected ZrO forms a localized etching zone around Au by releasing lattice oxygen and to inhibit the nucleation of metallic carbon nanotubes precisely. The obtained single-walled carbon nanotubes array show a high semiconducting content of >96%, on the basis of good performance of field-effect transistor devices. And such building of localized etching zone is compatible with other catalyst systems as a universal and efficient method for the scalable production of semiconducting carbon nanotubes.