Nanocarbon materials fabricated using plasmas

Abstract

Since the discovery of fullerenes more than three decades ago, new kinds of nanoscale materials of carbon allotropes called “nanocarbons” have so far been discovered or synthesized at successive intervals as cases such as carbon nanotubes, carbon nanohorns, graphene, carbon nanowalls, and a carbon nanobelt, while nanodiamonds were actually discovered before then. Their attractively excellent mechanical, physical, and chemical properties have driven researchers to continuously create one of the hottest frontiers in materials science and technology. While plasma states have often been involved in their discovery, on the other hand, plasma-based approaches to this exciting field originally hold promising and enormous potentials for advancing and expanding industrial/biomedical applications of nanocarbons of great diversity. This article provides an extensive overview on plasma-fabricated nanocarbon materials, where the term “fabrication” is defined as synthesis, functionalization, and assembly of devices to cover a wide range of issues associated with the step-by-step plasma processes. Specific attention has been paid to the comparative examination between plasma-based and non-plasma methods for fabricating the nanocarobons with an emphasis on the advantages of plasma processing, such as low-temperature/large-scale fabrication and diversity-carrying structure controllability. The review ends with current challenges and prospects including a ripple effect of the nanocarbon studies on the development of related novel nanomaterials such as transition metal dichalcogenides. It contains not only the latest progress in the field for cutting-edge scientists and engineers, but also the introductory guidance to non-specialists such as lower-class graduate students.