Article
1D Nanomaterials 2011
Journal of Nanomaterials
(2011)
Abstract
Following the first report on the concentric nature of carbon nanotube (CNTs) in 1991, an era of global nanomaterials research quickly emerged. Over decades of effort, significant progresses have been made by scientists of diverse disciplines from different prospects, which contribute to and become the foundation of the current Nanoscience and Nanotechnology revolution, alongside other three ground breaking inventions of steam engine, electricity, and possibly the internet in our history. It is fair to say that new nanomaterials with unique and fundamentally superior properties, against their conventional bulk forms, naturally become the core element for this revolution. Amongst the seemingly countless nanomaterials that have been documented today, 1-dimensional nanotubes and nanowires (also called nanorods, nanofibres or nanowhiskers) stand out as a class of important structures alongside CNTs, primarily owing to their high aspect ratios against the 0-dimensional nanoparticles, and their lattice stacking features (close to bulk crystal) as opposed to CNTs that formed by wrapping concentric layers of atoms. As a result of the bulk-like stacking within nanowires, elements and compounds of almost any known combinations could be candidates for the construction of new nanowires with specialty, thus offering huge potentials for applications. In fact, successes to date have been achieved in the generation of tens and hundreds of 1D nanowires with the broadest compositional combinations across the periodic table, in contrast to only a handful of nanotubes reported, and more successes are expected in the near future. It is believed that the flourish of new 1D nanomaterial research will continue for some time, and many newly proposed promising applications based on their unique structural characteristics and versatile properties are waiting to be explored.
Keywords
- nanomaterials,
- 1D
Disciplines
Publication Date
2011
Citation Information
Steve Acquah. "1D Nanomaterials 2011" Journal of Nanomaterials (2011) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/steve-acquah/4/