Highly Dense and Perfectly Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Fabricated by Diamond Wire Drawing Dies

We have developed a low-cost and effective method to align single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) using a series of diamond wire drawing dies. The obtained SWNTs are highly dense and perfectly aligned. X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicates that the highly dense and perfectly aligned SWNTs (HDPA-SWNTs) form a two-dimensional triangular lattice with a lattice constant of 19.62 Å. We observe a sharp (002) reflection in the XRD pattern, which should be ascribed to an intertube spacing 3.39 Å of adjacent SWNTs. Raman spectra reveal that the radical breath mode (RBM) of SWNTs with larger diameter in the HDPA-SWNTs is suppressed compared with that of as-grown SWNTs. The HDPA-SWNTs have a large density, ∼1.09 g/cm3, and a low resistivity, ∼2 mΩ cm, at room temperature, as well as a large response to light illumination. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have received intensified interest due to their potential applications in nanoscale materials and devices since their discovery.1 To date, much effort has been devoted to fabricating large uniform and ordered nano- and microstructrues of carbon nanotubes. Meanwhile, bulk materials of SWNTs also attract particular attention. As we know, the most interesting properties of carbon fullerenes appear in their condense