title: On the origin of preferential growth of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes.
abstract: A correlation is observed between the diameters (d) of single-walled carbon nanotubes and the percentages of metallic and semiconducting tubes synthesized at 600 degrees C by plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition. Small tubes (d approximately 1.1 nm) show semiconductor percentages that are much higher than expected for a random chirality distribution. Density functional theory calculations reveal differences in the heat of formation energies for similar-diameter metallic, quasi-metallic, and semiconducting nanotubes. Semiconducting tubes exhibit the lowest energies and the stabilization scales with approximately 1/d(2). This could be a thermodynamic factor in the preferential growth of small semiconducting nanotubes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Yiming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Shu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mann
authors.forename: Jien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Hongjie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dai