Covalent Coupling of Gold Nanoparticles to Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Electronic Device Applications
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Covalent Coupling of Gold Nanoparticles to Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Electronic Device Applications Xicheng Ma1, Ning Lun, Xia Li, Shulin Wen School of Material Science and Engineering, Characterization and Analysis Center for Materials, 1 School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Shandong University, Jinan 250061, PR China ABSTRACT Creating hybrid nanostructures of disparate nanoscale blocks is of interest of exploring new types of electronic devices and networks. Here, we demonstrate the novel coupling of gold nanoparticles of 3-4 nm diameters to sidewall of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) using the electroless plating technique. MWNTs were initially chemically modified with an H2SO4-HNO3 acid treatment, and subsequently activated with Pd-Sn catalytic nuclei via a one-step activation approach. When the activated MWNTs were immersed in a gold-containing electroless plating bath, gold deposition occurred at the catalytic sites. The deposited gold clusters then catalyze further gold deposition on the tube surface (autocatalytic process). Novel hybrid nanostructures with gold nanoparticles homogeneously distributed on MWNTs resulted. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to characterize the conjugation process. INTRODUCTION The unique electrical, mechanical, and chemical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have made them intensively studied materials in the field of nanotechnology [1-4]. A number of device application of these nanoscale materials have been envisioned. Examples of carbon nanotube-based devices include single-electron transistors [5], molecular diodes [6], memory elements [7], and logic gates [8]. There is a great deal of interest in devising strategies to individually address each molecular unit, and interconnect them, without adversely affecting the local electronic structure. One approach to enable this is to attach metal- or semiconductor nanoclusters to nanotubes. This approach is also attractive for creating molecular-level hybrid units and will allow the exploration of new properties and effects that arise from electronic-structure-level interactions between the constituent molecular units and applications such as active nanodevices and heterogeneous nanocatalysts. In this paper, a simple electroless plating method to covalently couple gold nanoparticles to the sidewall of MWNTs is introduced. MWNTs produced by using a catalytic decomposition of acetylene method were initially chemically modified with an H2SO4-HNO3 treatment, and subsequently activated via a one-step activation approach. When the activated MWNTs were immersed in an electroless plating bath, metal deposition occurred at the catalytic sites. The
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deposited metal clusters then catalyze further metal deposition on the tube surface (autocatalytic process). Novel hybrid nanostructures with homogeneously distributed gold nanoparticles on MWNTs resulted. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS MWNTs were synthesized by silica-supported cobalt-based
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