title: A seamless three-dimensional carbon nanotube graphene hybrid material.
abstract: Graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes are carbon materials that exhibit excellent electrical conductivities and large specific surface areas. Theoretical work suggested that a covalently bonded graphene/single-walled carbon nanotube hybrid material would extend those properties to three dimensions, and be useful in energy storage and nanoelectronic technologies. Here we disclose a method to bond graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes seamlessly during the growth stage. The hybrid material exhibits a surface area >2,000 m(2) g(-1) with ohmic contact from the vertically aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes to the graphene. Using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, we observed the covalent transformation of sp(2) carbon between the planar graphene and the single-walled carbon nanotubes at the atomic resolution level. These findings provide a new benchmark for understanding the three-dimensional graphene/single-walled carbon nanotube-conjoined materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Chenguang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Gilberto
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Casillas
authors.forename: Zhengzong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Gedeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ruan
authors.forename: Zhiwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Abdul-Rahman O
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Raji
authors.forename: Carter
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kittrell
authors.forename: Robert H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Hauge
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tour