Abstract:
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are amongst the most explored one-dimensional nanostructures and have attracted tremendous interest from fundamental science and technological perspectives. Albeit topologically simple, they exhibit a rich variety of intriguing electronic properties, such as metallic and semiconducting behaviour. Furthermore, these structures are atomically precise, meaning that each carbon atom is still three-fold coordinated without any dangling bonds. As an important wide-bandgap semiconductor (3.37 eV) with a large exciton binding energy (60 meV), ZnO has received widespread attention because of its excellent performance in electronics, optics, and photonics systems. This review deals with the building blocks of understanding of CNT/ZnO composite. CNT/ZnO composite could possess unique properties which are different from alone CNT and ZnO. Up to now, various methods, such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma-assisted sputter and microwave irradiation heating, have been carried out to modify CNT with ZnO.
This report provides an overview of current nanotube technology, with a special focus on synthesis and Characterization of pure CNTs and CNT/ZnO composite. In this report we have proposed a very simple and effective method to modify MWNTs with ZnO nanostructures. To understand the novel properties and applications of pure CNTs and CNT/ZnO composite, samples are characterized by FE-SEM, TEM, XRD, FTIR, VSM, UV-Visible and R-T analysis.
