Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 17 August 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5533, pp. 1299 - 1301
DOI: 10.1126/science.1061050
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Ring Closure of Carbon Nanotubes

Masahito Sano,* Ayumi Kamino, Junko Okamura, Seiji Shinkai

Lightly etched single-walled carbon nanotubes are chemically reacted to form rings. The rings appear to be fully closed as opposed to open coils, as ring-opening reactions did not change the structure of the observed rings. The average diameter of the rings was 540 nanometers with a narrow size distribution. The nanotubes in solution were modeled as wormlike polymer chains, yielding a persistence length of 800 nanometers. Nanotubes shorter than this length behave stiffly and stay nearly straight in solution. However, nanotubes longer than the Kuhn segment length of 1600 nanometers undergo considerable thermal fluctuation, suggesting a greater flexibility of these materials than is generally assumed.

Chemotransfiguration Project-JST, Kurume, Fukuoka 839-0861, Japan.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Diameter-dependent bending dynamics of single-walled carbon nanotubes in liquids.
N. Fakhri, D. A. Tsyboulski, L. Cognet, R. B. Weisman, and M. Pasquali (2009)
PNAS 106, 14219-14223
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Controlling the shape, orientation, and linkage of carbon nanotube features with nano affinity templates.
Y. Wang, D. Maspoch, S. Zou, G. C. Schatz, R. E. Smalley, and C. A. Mirkin (2006)
PNAS 103, 2026-2031
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Kinks, rings, and rackets in filamentous structures.
A. E. Cohen and L. Mahadevan (2003)
PNAS 100, 12141-12146
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)