Browsing by Author "Billups, W.E."

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    Diatoms at >5000 Meters in the Quelccaya Summit Dome Glacier, Peru
    (BioOne, 2015) Fritz, Sherilyn C.; Brinson, Bruce E.; Billups, W.E.; Thompson, Lonnie G.; Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology
    Diatoms were found in late Holocene age ice-core samples recovered from the Quelccaya Summit Dome in the tropical Andes of Peru and were imaged by environmental scanning electron microscopy and identified. Freshwater diatoms in the genera Hantzschia, Pinnularia, and Aulacoseira were the most common taxa in the samples and indicate a freshwater source for the material, which also is suggested by the presence of the freshwater alga Volvox. The overall species composition of the diatoms suggests that the majority of taxa originated from a high-elevation lake or wetland in the cordillera surrounding the ice cap. The abundant diatom valves, up to 70 µm in size, likely were transported to the ice via wind.
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    Physical removal of metallic carbon nanotubes from nanotube network devices using a thermal and fluidic process
    (IOP Publishing, 2013) Ford, Alexandra C.; Shaughnessy, Michael; Wong, Bryan M.; Kane, Alexander A.; Kuznetsov, Oleksandr V.; Krafcik, Karen L.; Billups, W.E.; Hauge, Robert H.; Léonard, François
    Electronic and optoelectronic devices based on thin films of carbon nanotubes are currently limited by the presence of metallic nanotubes. Here we present a novel approach based on nanotube alkyl functionalization to physically remove the metallic nanotubes from such network devices. The process relies on preferential thermal desorption of the alkyls from the semiconducting nanotubes and the subsequent dissolution and selective removal of the metallic nanotubes in chloroform. The approach is versatile and is applied to devices post-fabrication.
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    Structure-Dependent Thermal Defunctionalization of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
    (American Chemical Society, 2015) Ghosh, Saunab; Wei, Fang; Bachilo, Sergei M.; Hauge, Robert H.; Billups, W.E.; Weisman, R. Bruce; Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology
    Covalent sidewall functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is an important tool for tailoring their properties for research purposes and applications. In this study, SWCNT samples were first functionalized by reductive alkylation using metallic lithium and 1-iodododecane in liquid ammonia. Samples of the alkyl-functionalized SWCNTs were then pyrolyzed under an inert atmosphere at selected temperatures between 100 and 500 °C to remove the addends. The extent of defunctionalization was assessed using a combination of thermogravimetric analysis, Raman measurements of the D, G, and radial breathing bands, absorption spectroscopy of the first- and second-order van Hove peaks, and near-IR fluorescence spectroscopy of (n,m)-specific emission bands. These measurements all indicate a substantial dependence of defunctionalization rate on nanotube diameter, with larger diameter nanotubes showing more facile loss of addends. The effective activation energy for defunctionalization is estimated to be a factor of ∼1.44 greater for 0.76 nm diameter nanotubes as compared to those with 1.24 nm diameter. The experimental findings also reveal the quantitative variation with functionalization density of the Raman D/G intensity ratio and the relative near-IR fluorescence intensity. Pyrolyzed samples show spectroscopic properties that are equivalent to those of SWCNTs prior to functionalization. The strong structure dependence of the defunctionalization rate suggests an approach for scalable diameter sorting of mixed SWCNT samples.