Preparation and Characterization of Carbonaceous Non-Covalent Hybrids

Evgenee Yekymov, Chemical Engineering, Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, Israel

The Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscience and Technology, the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel 

Dept. of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boker Campus, 84990, Israel

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) and fulleres are materials with uniqe physical, mechanucal and chemical properties. Supramolecular hybrids of these materials offer tuneable electronic properties low percolation threshold along with strong electron acceptor behavior of the C₆₀ fullerenes. Unlike covalent  hybrids such as nanobuds(CNB), non-covalent exohedral nanotube-fullerene hybrids preserves the sp² hybridization of CNT and maintain the unique intrinsic properties of the fullerenes and CNT. These hybrids are expected to be useful for bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaics (OPV). Here we present the preparation of C₆₀-CNT exhoderal hybrids via thermal deposition of fullerenes onto pre-assembled, random, 3D-networks of individual, pristine CNTs. Structural characterized via SEM, HRTEM, Raman spectroscopy and Selected Area Electron Diffraction(SAED) reveal the formation of fullerite nano-crystals. Annealing at of the hybrids 80 °C results in re-organization of the C₆₀ nanocrsytals into nanometric layers that form  CNT-C60 core-shell like hybrids.