Carbon nanowalls and related materials

Abstract

Size, dimensionality, and shape play important roles in determining the properties of nanomaterials. So far, most of the nanomaterial researches have been focused on zero-dimensional nanoparticles/nanodots and one-dimensional nanowires/nanorods/nanotubes, but very few studies have been carried out on two-dimensional nano-sheets. Starting from carbon, recently we have succeeded in growing a class of nanostructured two-dimensional materials either in the pure forms or in the form of composites with carbon. In this paper, we will first briefly discuss various types of two-dimensional systems and then focus on the formation mechanism of carbon nanowalls and their field-emission and electron transport properties. The use of carbon nanowalls as templates for the formation of other types of nanomaterials will also be discussed.