Publication Date:
2014-12-18
Description:
Nature Materials 14, 43 (2015). doi:10.1038/nmat4088 Authors: Thomas C. Fitzgibbons, Malcolm Guthrie, En-shi Xu, Vincent H. Crespi, Stephen K. Davidowski, George D. Cody, Nasim Alem & John V. Badding Low-dimensional carbon nanomaterials such as fullerenes, nanotubes, graphene and diamondoids have extraordinary physical and chemical properties. Compression-induced polymerization of aromatic molecules could provide a viable synthetic route to ordered carbon nanomaterials, but despite almost a century of study this approach has produced only amorphous products. Here we report recovery to ambient pressure of macroscopic quantities of a crystalline one- dimensional sp3carbon nanomaterial formed by high-pressure solid-state reaction of benzene. X-ray and neutron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, solid-state NMR, transmission electron microscopy and first-principles calculations reveal close- packed bundles of subnanometre-diameter sp3-bonded carbon threads capped with hydrogen, crystalline in two dimensions and short-range ordered in the third. These nanothreads promise extraordinary properties such as strength and stiffness higher than that of sp2carbon nanotubes or conven tional high-strength polymers. They may be the first member of a new class of ordered sp3 nanomaterials synthesized by kinetic control of high-pressure solid-state reactions.
Print ISSN:
1476-1122
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4660
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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