Diameter control of single-walled carbon nanotubes by plasma rotating electrode process Original Research Article

We investigated plasma rotating electrode process (PREP) as a method for diameter control of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with a Ni–Y catalyst in He ambient. Compared with the diameters of SWNTs produced by the conventional arc discharge (0 rpm), those of SWNTs, which were synthesized by PREP (5000 and 10 000 rpm), were decreased. This result indicated that the centrifugal force by the rotation of anode could control the diameter distributions of SWNTs by controlling kinetic energies of carbon and/or metal species or formation region of SWNTs.