High Yielding Fabrication of Magnetically Responsive Coiled Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube under Flow

Abstract

The curvature in coiled single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) rings impacts on their properties relative to straight CNTs, but the availability of such rings is limited. This has been addressed in developing a continuous flow method for fabricating coiled SWCNTs rings in high yield (80%) using a vortex fluidic device (VFD), in the absence of any toxic chemicals and surfactants. The VFD thin film microfluidic platform has a rapidly rotating angled glass tube with the processed liquid driven up and out of the tube. Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) established that the magnetic interaction of the resulting rings is strongly dependent on the thickness of the coiled SWCNT rings.