Abstract
Grafting of fluorine species on carbon nanostructures has attracted interest due to the effective modification of physical and chemical properties of the starting materials. Various techniques have been employed to achieve a controlled fluorination yield; however, the effect of contaminants is rarely discussed, although they are often present. In the present work, the fluorination of vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes was performed using plasma treatment in a magnetron sputtering chamber with fluorine diluted in an argon atmosphere with an Ar/F2 ratio of 95:5. The effect of heavily diluted fluorine in the precursor gas mixture is investigated by evaluating the modifications in the nanotube structure and the electronic properties upon plasma treatment. The existence of oxygen-based grafted species is associated with background oxygen species present in the plasma chamber in addition to fluorine. The thermal stability and desorption process of the fluorine species grafted on the carbon nanotubes during the fluorine plasma treatment were evaluated by combining different spectroscopic techniques.
Highlights
The covalent functionalization of carbon nanostructures has been largely exploited, and different techniques have been employed for achieving fine control of their electronic properties
Covalent bonding occurs as a result of the plasma process, which is verified by different techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) [10,18,19]
In order to evaluate the thermal stability of the grafted species, we first analyze the C 1s, F 1s and O 1s core levels in the XPS spectra acquired after fluorination
Summary
The covalent functionalization of carbon nanostructures has been largely exploited, and different techniques have been employed for achieving fine control of their electronic properties. Carbon nanostructures have been decorated with a large variety of atoms and molecules, using wet chemistry, hydrothermal reactions and plasma process [1,2,3,4,5,6]. A large number of fluorination strategies and characterization routes have been reported, the choice of the precursor gas is a crucial issue that should not be underestimated due to the risk of polymerization, the introduction of unwanted atoms on the functionalized system, or the high toxicity level of the gas used. In the case of fluorine and noble gases mixtures, an important role for achieving optimal fluorination is played by the relative concentration of fluorine in the mixture during the plasma activation
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