Irradiation-assisted substitution of carbon atoms with nitrogen and boron in single-walled carbon nanotubes

✍ Scribed by J. Kotakoski; J.A.V. Pomoell; A.V. Krasheninnikov; K. Nordlund

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 411 KB
• Volume: 228
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2004.10.018

✦ Synopsis

Doping of carbon nanotubes with boron and nitrogen should provide more control over the nanotube electronic structure. In addition to the chemical substitution and arc-discharge methods used nowadays, we suggest using ion irradiation as an alternative way to introduce B/N impurities into nanotubes. Making use of molecular dynamics with analytical potentials we simulate irradiation of single-walled nanotubes with B and N ions and show that up to 40% of the impinging ions can occupy directly the sp 2 positions in the nanotube atomic network. We further estimate the optimum ion energies for the direct substitution. As annealing should further increase the number of sp 2 impurities due to dopant atom migration and interaction with vacancies, irradiation-mediated doping of nanotubes is a promising way to control the nanotube electronic structure.