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Science 23 September 1994:
Vol. 265. no. 5180, pp. 1850 - 1852
DOI: 10.1126/science.265.5180.1850
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Articles

Capillarity and Wetting of Carbon Nanotubes

E. Dujardin 1, T. W. Ebbesen 1, H. Hiura 1, and K. Tanigaki 1

1 Fundamental Research Laboratories, NEC Corporation, 34 Miyukigaoka, Tsukuba 305, Japan

The wetting and capillarity of carbon nanotubes were studied in detail here. Nanotubes are not "super-straws," although they can be wet and filled by substances having low surface tension, such as sulfur, selenium, and cesium, with an upper limit to this tension less than 200 millinewtons per meter. This limit implies that typical pure metals will not be drawn into the inner cavity of nanotubes through capillarity, whereas water and organic solvents will. These results have important implications for the further use of carbon nanotubes in experiments on a nanometer scale.

Submitted on June 13, 1994
Accepted on July 29, 1994


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Electrowetting in Carbon Nanotubes.
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