Self-Assembled Hierarchical Structure of Fullerene Building Blocks; Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and C60

• Published in: Journal of physical chemistry. C Vol. 115; no. 21; pp. 10483 - 10488
• Main Authors: Amer, Maher S, Busbee, John D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 02.06.2011
• Subjects: C: Nanops and Nanostructures
• ISSN: 1932-7447; 1932-7455
• DOI: 10.1021/jp201868b

We report a self-assembled hierarchical nanostructure produced by mixing two carbon nanobuilding blocksfullerene nanospheres (C60) and (10,10) armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes at ambient temperature and pressure. It was found that upon mixing the fullerene building blocks, they self-assemble into films with smectic liquid crystal-like periodicity. The films wrap around to form nanospheres (50 to 150 nm in diameter) with central cavities resembling pitted nanofruits that are connected by a network of stems. Raman spectroscopy showed 10 cm–1 softening in the frequency of the G+ mode of the assembled nanotubes indicating significant alteration in the assembly’s electronic structure. The current findings point out a new rich subject to explore which could promote engineered nanostructured assemblies leading to many advances in materials science and biological and environmental fields.