Espectroscopia Raman ressonante em nanotubos de carbono funcionalizados

Abstract

In this Thesis we report a study of the synthesis and functionalization of carbon nanotubes. Regarding the synthesis, we produced carbon nanotubes samples using the chemical vapor deposition method. Both single-wall and multi-wall carbon nanotubes were produced. The basic difference between these two growth results was the catalyst employed. We also have changed the exposure time of catalyst particle to the hydrogen gas to find out the optimal parameters for growing the nanotubes. The obtained samples were characterized by resonance Raman spectroscopy and thermal analysis. The obtained samples show higher thermal stability compared with some commercially available samples. Regarding functionalization of the tubes we studied three different systems. Firstly, we investigated the effect of Si+ and C+ ions bombardment on the structural and electronic properties of highly pure double wall carbon nanotubes (DWNTs). The implantation was performed at room temperature with high fluencies of ions varying from 1 to 100 x( 10 13 ions/cm2) and the Raman spectroscopy was the main technique employed for studying the ion implantation-induced changes in the nanotubes. The effects of the Si+ implantation is stronger than that of C+ and this is attributed to the larger ionic radius of Si. The D to G band intensity ratio was used for probing the ion concentration for which the system looses its sp2 character leading to a highly disordered system with a high concentration of sp3 bonds. We observed that as the ion implantation dosage increases, the D-band intensity increases and the radial breathing modes (RBM) of the semiconducting (outer) and metallic (outer) tube disappear first, before from the inner tubes. At higher ion-implantation dosage, the carbon nanotubes are completely deformed and the Raman spectrum is typical of highly disordered graphite. Secondly, we investigated the effects of H2SO4 doping on DWNTs and SWNTs where the diameter of SWNTs are in the same range as the inner tube of the DWNTs. The comparison of these two systems allow to further improve the knowledge of doping effects on the constituents of DWNTs as well as to establish differences between the exohedral doping of SWNTs and DWNTs bundles. Upon doping with H2SO4 the Breit-Wigner-Fano lineshape of metallic tubes in the SWNTs samples decreases and the G band frequencies increase thus indicating that an electronic charge transfer is occurring from the nanotubes to the dopant molecule. The effect on the DWNTs is opposite to that of SWNTs thus evidencing that the inner and outer shell interaction seems to affect the inner tube electronic transitions more than those of the outer tubes. Thirdly, we report a detailed characterization of a novel carbon nanotube-based system that is a coaxial nanocable made of carbon as core and selenium as shell. Carbon nanotube bundles are wrapped up within a trigonal selenium shell. We have demonstrated that the Butyl-lithium compound plays an important role in promoting the interaction between the carbon nanotubes and the selenium shells and thus enables the preparation of these nanocable structures. The Raman spectra of the SWNTs in the residue and the Se-CNT nanocables suggests that this selenium-carbon interaction is stronger for semiconducting nanotubes than for metallic nanotubes. The chemistry of Selenium would allow the synthesis of carbon nanotubes decorated with other functional Se-based structures, such as CdSe, ZnSe, among others.