The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. 1 Introduction Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been expected to enhance thermal conductivity in various materials including composites, for applications such as thermal interface materials. However, the thermal properties of bulk CNTs and CNT composites tend not to achieve the hig...

nanostructures have considerably higher surface areas than their bulk counterparts; thereforesurfaces often play important, sometimes even dominant, roles in the nanostructure properties. thenanocrystalline and nanotubes have low band gaps and high carrier mobility, thus offeringappealing potential as absorption gas. interaction between methanol molecules and carbonnanotube is investigated usin...

Electron emission from the sidewall of a bent individual multiwall carbon nanotube (CNT) is reported. The CNT was synthesized using a catalytic chemical vapor deposition method and the focused-ion beam technique was used to fabricate the CNT-based electron emitter. With controlled ion bombardment, individual carbon nanotubes can be bent into loops with different radii. An external electric fiel...

It is believed that the crucial step towards preparation of electrical conductive polymer-carbon nanotube (CNT) composites is dispersing CNTs with a high length-to-diameter aspect ratio in a well-aligned manner. However, this process is extremely challenging when dealing with long and entangled CNTs. Here in this study, a new approach is demonstrated to fabricate conductive polymer-CNT composit...

Large area well-aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays with different morphologies were synthesized by using a chemical vapor deposition. The plasma-induced emission properties of CNT array cathodes with different morphologies were investigated. The ratio of CNT height to CNT-to-CNT distance has considerable effects on their plasma-induced emission properties. As the ratio increases, emission cur...

Traffic flow sensors are import devices to provide inputs for traffic management applications. This NATRL seed project explores the piezoresistive property of the CNT/cement composite and its feasibility as an embedded stress sensor for to detect traffic flow. The experimental results show that the electrical resistance of the CNT/cement composites changes proportionally to the compressive stre...

Common materials acquire new properties when manufactured in the nanoscale. The same properties that are responsible for the exciting new possibilities are also a cause for some concern. The high surface area to volume ratio is a feature of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) that causes the amount of surface area to dominate their possible effects. In the case of carbon nanomaterials and other fibe...

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Understanding and controlling the hierarchical self-assembly of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is vital for designing materials such as transparent conductors, chemical sensors, high-performance composites, and microelectronic interconnects. In particular, many applications require high-density CNT assemblies that cannot currently be made directly by low-density CNT growth, and therefore require post-...

Applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in flexible and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-based electronic and energy devices are impeded due to typically low CNT areal densities, growth temperatures that are incompatible with device substrates, and challenges in large-area alignment and interconnection. A scalable method for continuous fabrication and transfer printing of dense ho...