Structural and morphological investigation of Langmuir-Blodgett SWCNT/behenic acid multilayers

TL;DR

This study investigates the structural and morphological properties of Langmuir-Blodgett multilayers incorporating single wall carbon nanotubes, revealing how compression pressure affects nanotube packing and uniformity.

Contribution

It introduces a method for embedding SWCNTs into LB multilayers and analyzes the impact of compression pressure on their organization and coverage.

Findings

Higher compression pressure yields denser nanotube packing.

Periodic multilayer structure is maintained with SWCNT incorporation.

Sample uniformity improves at increased compression pressure.

Abstract

The goal of our work has been the incorporation of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in Langmuir-Blodgett organic multilayers. We deposited multilayers consisting of six cadmium behenate (CdBe) layers alternated with one layer of SWCNTs. SWCNTs and CdBe molecules were spread at the air/water interface and deposited at a fixed compression pressure for CdBe (27mN/m) and two different compression pressures for the nanotubes, 15 and 45mN/m, respectively. Low angle X-ray measurements exhibited distinct satellite peaks in all the samples demonstrating that the periodicity of the LB CdBe reference sample was conserved when SWCNTs were inserted in the structure. In agreement with the observations at optical and electronic microscopes, the samples deposited at the higher compression pressure (45mN/m) presented more densely-packed and more uniform coverage of nanotubes.