Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube's End-Cap Engineering—Molecular Seeds for Controlled Synthesis of Chirality-Pure SWCNT

Abstract

Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs) possess superior electronic properties and have a great potential for possible future nanoelectronic applications. The unique properties of SWCNTs are directly attributed to their structural organization or chirality. The selective and entirely controlled synthesis of chirality-pure SWCNTs is a long-standing goal which is highly crucial for their subsequent applications. Epitaxial growth from well-defined molecular seeds such as SWCNT caps has been proved to be a highly promising strategy for the synthesis of chirality-pure SWCNTs. Here we review studies toward the chirality-controlled synthesis of SWCNTs by surface-assisted strategy utilizing specially designed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are “preprogrammed” for the formation of well-defined SWCNT cap. The main focus lies on the design and synthetic concept toward the facile synthesis of SWCNT cap precursors of various chiralities. The relevance and advantages of on-surface synthesis strategy for fabrication of chirality-pure SWCNTs are highlighted.