文摘
We provide a wet chemical approach for organizing randomly tangled single-walled carbon nanotubes(SWCNTs) on gold surfaces. The as-grown nanotubes were first chemically cut into short pipes and thiol-derivatized at the open ends. The ordered assembly of SWCNTs was made by their spontaneous chemicaladsorption to gold via Au-S bonds. Tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) images clearly show thatthe nanotubes have been organized on gold, forming a self-assembled monolayer structure with aperpendicular orientation. The adsorption kinetics of the nanotubes was very slow in comparison toconventional alkanethiols. The adsorption rate varied inversely with tube length. The nanotubes tend toform bundles as the adsorption propagates, following a "nucleation adsorption mechanism". This workdemonstrates that "giant" carbon nanotubes can be assembled on Au surfaces using wet chemistry similarto that exploited for "small" organic self-assembling species. We believe that assembled nanotube arrayswill provide wide possibilities for applications.