High-Purity Monochiral Carbon Nanotubes with a 1.2 nm Diameter for High-Performance Field-Effect Transistors

Monochiral single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are promising materials with potential applications in 3D integrated circuits and optoelectronic hybrid circuits. However, the purity and device performance of monochiral SWCNTs are still far lower than expected. Here, the authors demonstrate that specific monochiral SWCNTs can be wrapped by conjugated polymers containing pyridine units, and the supramolecular assemblies show surprising suspension stability even after high-intensity ultracentrifugation. Additionally, two novel methods are developed, namely, enhanced ultracentrifugation (E-UCG) and stepwise extraction processing (STEP), which successfully achieve isolation of (10,8) and (12,5) SWCNTs with respective diameters of 1.24 and 1.2 nm at high monochiral purity (92.3% and 95.6%). Their S-11 absorption and fluorescence emission peaks are both at approximate to 1.5 mu m (optical telecommunications C-band). Both micro- and nanoscale field-effect transistor (FET) devices can be fabricated from the as-isolated (10,8) SWCNTs, and these FETs exhibit excellent electrical performance and a high semiconducting purity of up to 99.94%.

单手性单壁碳纳米管（SWCNTs）是在3D集成电路和光电混合电路中具有潜在应用的有前景的材料。然而，单手性单壁碳纳米管的纯度和器件性能仍远低于预期。在此，作者证明特定的单手性单壁碳纳米管可被含吡啶单元的共轭聚合物包裹，并且超分子组装体即使在高强度超速离心后仍显示出令人惊讶的悬浮稳定性。此外，还开发了两种新方法，即增强超速离心法（E - UCG）和逐步萃取工艺（STEP），它们成功地以高单手性纯度（92.3%和95.6%）分离出直径分别为1.24和1.2 nm的（10,8）和（12,5）单壁碳纳米管。它们的S - 11吸收和荧光发射峰均在约1.5 μm（光通信C波段）。可以用所分离出的（10,8）单壁碳纳米管制造微米级和纳米级场效应晶体管（FET）器件，并且这些场效应晶体管表现出优异的电学性能以及高达99.94%的高半导体纯度。