Third-order nonlinear optical studies of carbon nanotubes developed by floating catalyst technique
Introduction
One-dimensional carbon nanotubes gained significant interest in modern technology and seem to be the material for next-generation technology [1,2]. Due to their low density, unique microstructure, excellent electrical and mechanical properties and attractive optical properties that allowing this material to apply in different potential technological applications, such as bio-imaging, nonlinear optics, photonics, photovoltaics, optoelectronic devices, nanoelectronics devices, hydrogen storage, sensors [[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]]. CNTs exhibit many significant characteristic properties such as nonlinear Kerr-effect, reverse saturable absorption, saturable absorption etc. The large nonlinear optical phenomena possessing in this material enable applications in all-optical signal processing, optical limiting, high-speed optical switches etc [6]. The large optical nonlinearity in CNT's is due to the presence of delocalized π-electrons along the tube axes [10].
The one dimensional CNT's have been developed with various synthetic approaches such as chemical vapour deposition (CVD), laser ablation, arc discharge, etc [11]. Compared to other techniques, the CVD technique is an easy and inexpensive method to develop CNTs with controlled manner [12]. CVD technique needs a carbon source and metal catalyst to produce one-dimensional CNTs. Adding of catalyst splits CVD systems into floating catalyst technique in which a catalyst is in gaseous phase. The advantage of floating catalyst technique over the fixed catalyst technique is that the catalyst preparation stage is not necessary. The catalyst is continually produced in the chamber and the problem of deactivation of catalyst is eluded. Although, a lot of work has been reported on the synthesis of CNT's using ferrocene as a catalyst precursor, here we have carried out a detailed investigation into the synthesis of CNT's by optimizing the synthesis temperature using the ferrocene double-stage CVD method.
In this paper, we presented a simple way for the synthesis of CNT using a floating catalyst process. The temperature effect on CNT synthesis has been elaborated. CNT's' catalytic growth was clarified on the basis of the VLS model and the proposed model was validated by studies of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Further, the NLO and optical limiting properties of the CNT's were investigated using Z-scan technique at nanosecond laser pulses.
Section snippets
Synthesis and purification carbon nanotubes
The CNT's have been developed using double stage CVD technique [13]. Argon was used as the carrier gas and acetylene gas as the carbon precursor. As a catalyst intermediate, ferrocene carboxaldehyde was used. The effect of temperature on the performance of CNT's synthesized at optimized acetylene (15 sccm) and argon (500 sccm) flow rates were investigated. A 100 mg of ferrocene/ferrocene carboxaldehyde was collected in a quartz boat and placed in the quartz reactor. The furnace was heated above
Structural and morphology of grown CNT's
CNT's were synthesized at different temperatures from 700 to 1150 °C at optimized gas flow levels (15 sccm acetylene: 500 sccm argon) to test the influence of temperature on the performance of CNT's. The substances collected have been filtered and characterized. The size and shape of the synthesized CNT's were analysed and studied using SEM and TEM techniques. The analysis reveals that synthesized structures were nanotubes and are uniformly dispersed without any agglomerations. Fig. 1 displays
Conclusions
CNT's have been successfully developed using the floating catalyst process as a catalyst precursor for ferrocene and ferrocene carboxaldehyde. The level of gas flow is designed for 15 sccm of acetylene and 500 sccm of argon. At all growth temperature (700 °C to 1150 °C), the diameter and yield of CNT's remained the same with an average diameter in the range of 20–30 nm. CNT's ' catalytic growth was clarified on the basis of the system of vapour-liquid-solid (VLS). The growth rate of nanotubes
CRediT authorship contribution statement
K.B. Manjunatha: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Rajarao Ravindra: Visualization, Methodology, Software. Albin Antony: Validation, Data curation. P. Poornesh: Conceptualization, Formal analysis.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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