Enrichment of high-purity large-diameter semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes SWCNTs (s-SWCNTs) are considered one of the most promising alternatives to traditional silicon-based semiconductors. In particular, large-diameter s-SWCNTs (>1.2 nm) exhibit more advantages over small-diameter ones in high-performance electronic applications because of their higher charge carrier mobility and reduced Schottky barrier height. Great efforts have been made to enriching large-diameter s-SWCNTs from mass-produced raw CNTs that contain both metallic SWCNTs and s-SWCNTs. Among separation technologies, the effective and scalable ones are conjugated polymer wrapping (CPW), gel permeation chromatography (GC), aqueous two-phase extraction (ATPE), and density gradient ultracentrifugation (DGU). In this review, we survey recent progress on enriching large-diameter s-SWCNTs using those methods and outline the strategies and challenges in the separation according to the electronic type and chirality of SWCNTs. Finally, we highlight some applications of the enriched large-diameter s-SWCNTs and outlook for the future of SWCNT-based electronic devices.