Posted: June 26, 2006

Single-walled B-C-N nano-tubes synthesized

(Nanowerk News) A research team at the Chinese Academy od Sciences (CAS) Institute of Physics was recently reported to achieve an important progress in preparation of the tri-element nano-tubes containing boron and nitrogen. The work has been published by the prestigious us journal JACS.
Attached to the National Laboratory for Condensed-matter Physics under the CAS institute, three scientists in the team, namely, Wang Wenlong, Bai Xuedong and Wang Enge, succeeded in preparing the large-scale arrays of ternary boron carbon nitride single-walled nanotubes (BCN-SWNTs) through direct synthesis in the bias-assisted hot filament chemical vapor deposition. Since the successful development of the pure carbon nanotubes, scientists were eager to prepare B-C-N ternary nano-tubes and explore their properties. Related theoretical probes predict that, unlike carbon nano-tubes, the tri-element nano-tubes have their own electronic structure determined mainly by their chemical components and irrelevant to their structure's geometric chirality while their energy gaps may be regulated between graphite and boron nitrite. All of these characteristics may be used to manufacture new types of micro-electronic devices. Yet, to combine the three elements via a covalent bonding within a lab, this is a real challenge to developers of new materials.
In recent years, the research team headed by Prof. Wang Enge has made a series of studies on the synthesis and property characterization of the nano-structures made from light elements. Based on this, the teammates adopted a new approach for the crystal growth on gaseous deposition with the introduction of highly specific catalysts and optimized growth parameters, leading to the realization of the direct synthesis. When characterizing the new material's properties, they came to join hands with Japan's National Institute for Materials Science. The joint research indicates the new material has intact walls, high contents of B and N in the ternary nano-tubes, becoming a new and encouraging advance in making nano-structures of light elements.
The research was funded by the CAS, the Ministry of Science & Technology and National Foundation for Natural Sciences of China.
Source: CAS