《Nucleation and Growth of Single-Walled Nanotubes The Role of Metallic Catalysts》.pdf

JOURNAL OF NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY Nucleation and Growth of Single-Walled Nanotubes: The Role of Metallic Catalysts J. Gavillet,a J. Thibault,b O. Stéphan,c H. Amara,a A. Loiseau,a Ch. Bichara,d J.-P. Gaspard,e and F. Ducastellea, * a Laboratoire d’Etude des Microstructures (LEM), ONERA-CNRS, Châtillon Cedex, France b Département de Recherche Fondamentale sur la Matière Condensée (DRMFC), CEA-Grenoble Cedex, Grenoble, France c Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (LPS), Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France d Centre de Recherche sur les Mécanismes de Croissance Cristalline (CRMC2), CNRS, Marseille Cedex, France e Physique de la Matière Condensée, Université de Liège, Sart-Tilman, Belgium We present a review of experimental and theoretical results on the nucleation and growth of single- walled nanotubes, with particular emphasis on the growth of nanotube bundles emerging from cat- alyst particles obtained from evaporation-based elaboration techniques. General results are rst discussed. Experiments strongly suggest a root-growth process in which carbon, dissolved at high temperatures in catalytic particles, segregates at the surface at lower temperatures to form tube embryos and nally nanotubes through a nucleation and growth process. A theoretical analysis of the reasons carbon does not always form graphene sheets to wrap the particles suggests analo- gies with other surface or interface