Novel mechanism of damage introduction into carbon nanotubes caused by irradiation in gas medium

Abstract

In situ measurements of the resistance changes of carbon nanotube bundles irradiated by 60 Co g-quanta at room temperature are presented. The peculiarity of our study consists in providing the sample irradiation in a hermetic cell filled with different gases at atmosphere pressure. Here we demonstrate the results for irradiation in hydrogen, deuterium, helium and argon media. The obtained dependences of the resistance change versus irradiation dose in vacuum are presented, too. We have developed a novel two-stage mechanism, which implies defect introduction by energetic intermediate particles that are gas atoms. Preliminary calculations for Compton electrons (0.85 MeV) and atmospheric gas pressure show the high efficiency of this two-stage mechanism in comparison to conventional one-stage mechanism. It is shown that the defect introduction rate in the developed two-stage mechanism is strongly dependent on the gas atomic mass and coincides well with our experimental results.

Comparative study of the modification of multi-wall carbon nanotubes by gamma irradiation and sonochemically assisted acid etching

“…Danilchenko et al also reported the introduction of defects into CNTs by irradiation [30] while other groups have exploited these effects to functionalize the surfaces of CNTs. [31].…”

Stability of the Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid state in gamma-irradiated carbon nanotube bundles

“…These irradiation conditions were chosen for several reasons:  -irradiation introduces structural defects, mostly vacancies [25], and the efficiency of defect creation depends strongly on the surrounding gas medium during  -irradiation [26]. Moreover,  -irradiation up to a dose of 1.7x10…”

“…In this paper, we report experimental results for the change in conductivity of SWCNT bundles when irradiated with 60 Co γ -rays in hydrogen and deuterium media as well as in vacuum. These irradiation conditions were chosen for several reasons: γ -irradiation introduces structural defects, mostly vacancies [25], and the efficiency of defect creation depends strongly on the surrounding gas medium during γ -irradiation [26]. Moreover, γ -irradiation up to a dose of 1.7 × 10 7 rad in hydrogen leads to the accumulation of atomic hydrogen inside SWCNTs, with a concentration of up to 3.5 at.% [10].…”