Large-area blown bubble films of aligned nanowires and carbon.pdfVIP

Supplementary Information for: Large-area blown bubble films of aligned nanowires and carbon nanotubes Guihua Yu1*, Anyuan Cao2* Charles M. Lieber1,3 1Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA. 3Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. Supplementary Methods Supplementary Figures S1-S4 © 2007 Nature Publishing Group Supplementary Methods Estimation of drift velocity of NWs during bubble expansion. The drift velocity 2 2 (UNW-Ufluid) of NWs in a polymer fluid can be calculated as UNW-Ufluid = c Ufluid/6 = 2 1 (c /6µ)(p/r), where U is the velocity along the normal direction (subscripts denote NWs or fluid), c is NW radius (10 nm), µ is solution viscosity (25 Pa·s) and p/r is the pressure gradient along the normal to the interface. Assuming a uniform pressure gradient, we evaluate p/r, where p = 150 – 100 = 50 kPa is the pressure difference at the inner wall and outer surface of bubble and r = 200–500 nm and 2–5 µm in the fully expanded regions and near to the die, respectively. The Faxen laws1 predict an increasing drift velocity (UNW-Ufluid), ca. 10 to 100 nm/s from the beginning to the final stage of the expansion. During the expansion the NWs can move a distance of hundreds of nanometers, which is comparable to the expanded BBF thickness. Hence, this estimate is consistent with the observation that all of the NWs are located at the outer surface film surface. Calculation of the Peclet number for NW/NT polymer